


The Things We Lost

by lovesnarf (snarfette)



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: AU (superhero), Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, M/M, Minor Character Death, Murder, Superpowers, mutations, violence like in a marvel movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2020-10-19 08:58:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 46,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20654585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snarfette/pseuds/lovesnarf
Summary: Sometimes even superheroes need saving.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> So, I’ve been umming and ahhing about whether or not to post this fic and I’ve gone back and forth on who to include and the plot quite a bit, but this is me, biting the bullet, and getting on with it. This is just a short prologue to get things going and set up what will come next. 
> 
> For the setting of this story, human beings with advanced skills and mutations are common and accepted in society. For that reason, the characters do not need to hide their identities as ‘superheroes’ so don’t wear masks. Some people choose to live normal lives and use their ‘gifts’ solely for personal reasons, while others use them for the benefit of other people. And, as is always the way in these stories, some people choose to use their powers to be bad.
> 
> I’ve changed the timeline and the characters’ ages quite a bit to fit in with what I wanted as I’m sure you’ll see as soon as you start reading.
> 
> Also, the title for this story comes from Bastille’s, ‘Things We Lost in the Fire’.
> 
> Here endeth the massive author’s note.

It was probably the biggest fire that they had ever dealt with. The fire crews were desperately trying to stop it spreading and calm its ferocity, but they were obviously struggling to contain it.

Dawn, in her fairly new role as communications analyst, had decided that they needed to head to the scene to help out. She had been monitoring the reports of the blaze on the news and through the various communications channels she had tapped in to, and she had discovered that there were civilians still trapped in the building with the fire crews rapidly running out of time to help them.

They hadn’t even had time for the car, so the simplest solution had been for Matty to teleport Aaron, Jackson, Ellis and Liv straight to the scene. 

Aaron was still a little reluctant about letting his little sister join them on missions. She had only been working alongside them for a few months, but she was learning fast and had quickly become a valuable member of the team.

As soon as they arrived, Aaron located the fire chief and requested a full overview of the situation. He reported back to the others that things were looking pretty grim.

“They think there could be as many as twenty people still trapped on the upper floors. There’s no way they can make it down without help and the fire crews can’t get in because the fire’s too intense,” Aaron filled them in as quickly as possible.

“I can teleport them out,” Matty immediately announced.

“Not until you’ve seen where you’re going,” Aaron told him sternly. “You might accidently land right in the middle of a fireball if you try and go in there blind. We need to go in the old-fashioned way, and  then you can start getting people out.”

“So we’re going in?” Ellis asked, looking like he was already desperate to get going.

“Of course we are,” Jackson replied easily. “This’ll be no problem.”

“Maybe for you,” Ellis commented as he scrunched up his nose. “Unfortunately, we don’t all have the ability to control fire and we certainly don’t have flame-proof skin.”

Jackson reached out to ruffle Ellis’s hair as Ellis batted his hand away. “Aw, are you worried you’ll singe your fur?”

“I don’t have fur ,” Ellis responded immediately.

“We don’t have time for this,” Aaron interrupted them. “We need to get in there - now.”

“I love it when you get all forceful,” Jackson smirked and winked at Aaron, causing him to roll his eyes but also smile a little.

“Liv, stay here and keep us updated on anything we need to know.”

She nodded quickly, her eyes wide as she stared up at the building being devoured by the flames. 

The rest of the team ran towards the door of the building, but just as they were about to enter, Aaron grabbed Jackson’s arm. “Be careful,” he said seriously. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

It was Jackson’s turn to roll his eyes, but he smiled fondly at Aaron. “I’m always careful,” he said gently.

Aaron frowned at him but Jackson’s smile only widened. He pressed a quick kiss to Aaron’s cheek. “You worry too much, but I love you for it. Now come on, there’s hero stuff to be done,” he announced enthusiastically.

Aaron shook his head in mock despair, but then he schooled his features into a determined expression. There really was work to be done.

Running into a burning building was fairly standard stuff for the four of them. They had tackled worse and had been in so many life-threatening situations that the whole thing seemed pretty normal.

Jackson took the lead, pushing back the flames with a flick of his wrist. Each time he moved his hand, the fire curled backwards enough for the group to pass through untouched before it roared back to its original position once they had moved on. The heat from the blaze was intense and the thick, acrid smoke filled the air making their eyes water and making it hard to breathe. They were glad of their specially designed suits that Dawn had introduced when she’d started working with them. Now they wore them for all missions. With Jackson’s fire manipulation abilities, Dawn had suggested that it was for the best if all of their suits were fire-proof in case they got caught in the crossfire (literally) and right now they were particularly grateful for her idea.

They pushed on regardless of the danger, up flights of stairs that creaked and moaned under their weight, and past rooms full of flames.

Ellis was the most light-footed of all of them, so found he could pick his way across the damaged floorboards and stairs easily. He overtook Jackson at the top of the final staircase and stood completely still. Through the roaring of the fire and the cracking and splintering of wood, he could hear the weak cries of those still trapped and he directed the others towards the room they were sheltering in.

In one easy movement, Aaron had pulled the door from its hinges and the four of them rushed inside to find several people cowering beside the window. Their desperate faces displayed shock but also hope at the sight of the group that had appeared in the room.

Matty immediately stepped forward. He scanned the group and picked out a mother and her two young sons.

“Take hold of my hand,” he ordered. “Do not let go of me.”

The mother quickly ushered her children towards Matty. She looked at him slightly nervously before she placed her children’s hands into Matty’s and then wrapped her hand around his wrist tightly. Before anyone in the room could blink, Matty and the family had disappeared. The remaining people gasped and stared at the space where they had been standing with wide eyes. It was almost comical that even in such a life-threatening situation they could still be so stunned, like they were at some sort of magic show.

Jackson had moved to the doorway and was swiping the flames away from the room rapidly. It was a constant battle against the raging fire that wanted to lick its way into the room.

“Jackson?” Aaron called out, just to check if he was alright.

Jackson cast a quick glance over his shoulder at Aaron and grinned. He  almost looked like he was enjoying himself.

“I could do this all day!” he yelled. “No sweat.”

Aaron nodded at him, ignoring his terrible joke, before turning his attention back to the other occupants of the room. 

Within moments, Matty had reappeared and he immediately selected three more people to transport. He could have carried more but the more people he transported, the riskier it became and he couldn’t afford to have his concentration disturbed in such circumstances. He vanished along with the next group as quickly as he had the first time. He repeated the action over and over, disappearing with a group of people and reappearing as soon as he had moved them to safety. He was beginning to look more and more tired every time he reappeared in the room, no doubt the effort of moving so many people so quickly taking its toll. 

“Aaron?” Liv’s voice called through his ear piece.

Aaron lifted his hand to his ear to try to hear more clearly. “Go ahead, Liv,” he responded.

“Aaron, you need to get out of there. The fire chief’s called it; says the building’s going to go down. You need to get out  now ,” Liv told him. The concern was obvious in her voice.

Aaron glanced around the room. There were still four people left cowering as Ellis tried to keep them calm and breathing.

“We’ve got civilians still trapped up here,” he told Liv and both Ellis and Jackson looked across at him, already understanding the desperate situation they were in.

“Your time’s up, Aaron,” Liv said. “Get out of there.”

Matty reappeared at that moment. He took one look at Aaron’s face and nodded. He’d heard Liv’s message in his own earpiece and he grabbed hold of the four people still in the room. In such dire circumstances, he couldn’t afford to worry about splitting the remaining group up: he had to take them all in one go. He gave Aaron a nod and vanished from sight along with his ‘passengers’ and left only Aaron, Jackson and Ellis still in the room. They exchanged a relieved look that all of the people were safely away from the fire.

“What now?” Ellis shouted over the sound of the fire ripping the building apart, causing sections to collapse.

“We wait for Matty to come back for us,” Aaron called back.

Jackson looked over his shoulder at them as he continued to push the fire back. “I can clear a path for us,” he yelled. “Let’s go.”

“No,” Aaron argued. “It’s too risky. The building’s coming down and the fire’s too intense. Wait for Matty: he’ll be back any minute now.”

“We don’t need to wait,” Jackson urged. “I can get us out. Come on.”

He turned back to the fire and took a step forward. He forced the flames back with his hand and moved forward again. Glancing backwards, he locked eyes with Aaron.

“Come  on, Aaron,” he yelled again.

Aaron took a step forward, but before he could go any further, Ellis grabbed his arm. He was wide-eyed as he held on to Aaron.

“No!” he said forcefully. “Jackson, stop! The floor’s going to…”

Several things happened at once. Jackson turned around at the sound of Ellis’s voice and looked at him questioningly. There was a terrible creaking sound that could be heard even over the roar of the fire. Then, the floor where Jackson was standing seemed to crack open. His eyes flicked to Aaron and he looked panicked for a moment before he started to fall through the hole in the floor. In the same moment, Matty reappeared in the room beside Aaron and Ellis.

“ No! ” Aaron screamed as he moved to lunge forward but Ellis grabbed hold of him tightly preventing him from falling through the floorboards which were splintering and disappearing rapidly, engulfed in flames as they fell away.

Aaron struggled against Ellis, desperate to get to where Jackson had been standing just moments ago, but suddenly the room, and the fire, was gone. Aaron felt the odd, rushing feeling he always had whenever Matty teleported them somewhere and almost instantly he was standing outside the building, still struggling against Ellis.

“No,  no !” he shouted. “We have to go back.” He pushed Ellis away and grabbed Matty’s arm. “Take us back!” he yelled desperately at him. “We need to go back for Jackson.”

“Aaron, there’s nothing you can do. You  can’t go back in there,” Matty told him as he shook his head in despair, tears in his eyes.

Aaron looked furious as he shook his arm. “Take me back  now !” he commanded angrily.

Matty shook his head again – his bottom lip was trembling as he feared that his friend would never forgive him for what he’d done. 

“Aaron, leave him,” Liv was saying as she’d finally made her way over to them. “Let him go. He can’t take you back.”

Aaron turned to glare at her. As she opened her mouth to speak again, there was a thunderous groaning sound and the building that they had been standing in moments before began to collapse in on itself. It crumpled rapidly before their eyes and left them all staring in shock.

***

It took several hours before the building was stable enough for them to re-enter. It wasn’t really a building at all anymore; it was just a pile of smouldering rubble. Somehow, the ground floor was still mostly accessible with extremely careful negotiation.

The roof was still groaning under the strain of the wreckage piled above it as Aaron, Matty, Ellis, Liv and Dawn entered.

Dawn had driven down to the scene as soon as she had heard what had happened and joined them in the search for their missing friend. 

Aaron was desperate to get inside and find Jackson. He was  sure that he would be alright: maybe he was just trapped somewhere or hurt and couldn’t move. Even when Liv had tried to locate Jackson telepathically but had no success, Aaron still refused to believe the worst. He just kept repeating that if Jackson was unconscious, she wouldn’t be able to reach him.

The five of them picked their way through the disaster zone, calling out as they went. It was a slow and dreadful task as they carefully made their way through the rubble.

It was Aaron that found Jackson. The green and yellow of his suit stood out even in the dimness of the collapsed building. Aaron rushed forward and fell to his knees beside him. He called his name desperately and shook his shoulders gently.

“Here!” he called out. “He’s over here.”

He turned his attention back to Jackson. There was a graze running from above his right eyebrow down his temple but, other than that, he looked unscathed. His fire resistant skin had obviously protected him from the flames.

As the others approached, they could already see that Jackson was dead. He was completely, frighteningly still; his body twisted at an unusual angle. There was no rise and fall of his chest, no flicker of his eyelids. 

Heart aching, Liv watched as Aaron squeezed Jackson’s hand and called his name repeatedly. She sunk to her knees beside Aaron and felt Jackson’s neck for a pulse. She already knew what she’d find but she did it for Aaron’s benefit more than anything else.

Matty, Ellis and Dawn were standing watching the scene with wide eyes. Matty had tears rolling down his face and Ellis squeezed his shoulder in reassurance - it wasn’t his fault. 

Removing her fingers, Liv placed her hand over Aaron’s that was still holding Jackson’s hand. Aaron looked at her hopefully and in that moment Liv thought he looked so young, so much younger than the strong, protective older brother she was so used to. 

“Aaron,” she started gently, “I’m sorry. He’s gone.”

Aaron’s eyes widened and he shook his head in denial. “No, no he’s not,” he said desperately.

“Aaron, listen to me, please…he didn’t make it. Jackson’s dead,” Liv told him, still speaking gently as she struggled to hold back the tears that had started to pool in her own eyes.

Aaron looked back at Jackson’s face and just stared for a long time. Gently, he slid his hands under Jackson’s back and lifted him to hold him against his chest. He pulled him close as his eyes filled with tears.

For several minutes, Aaron was absolutely silent as he held Jackson’s broken body tightly. Then he threw his head back and let out a terrible scream that was filled with pure anguish. It was the sound of his heart breaking and it crushed his friends and his sister to hear it.

They knew in that moment that none of them would ever be the same again.


	2. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the lovely feedback on the prologue. Let’s bring Robert into the mix...

Two Years Later

For at least the hundredth time that day, Robert wondered what he was doing. He had been wondering the same thing, questioning himself and second guessing everything, since he had started discussing this plan with Dawn a few months ago. Now, as he pulled up outside the huge house where she lived and worked, he was still asking himself if he was making a monumental (even by his standards) mistake.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her. In fact, Robert really quite liked her: she seemed like a genuinely kind young woman who had the right amount of attitude that she didn’t take any shit from the likes of Robert and he could appreciate that. She was honest about the fact that she’d had it tough and made some bad choices - and he could sympathise with that - but now it seemed like all she wanted was to make a difference and help people. So, it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her: it was just that everything that Dawn had told him still seemed a little far-fetched.

Of course, Robert knew that there was a group of ‘superheroes’ (for lack of any other appropriate description) that apparently guarded the city and sprung into action when trouble struck, but Robert still couldn’t quite believe that Dawn was basically in charge of the organisation. 

He had seen them on the news and in the papers, kitted out in special suits, looking like a well-oiled machine as they saved the day on numerous occasions. Dawn - who seemed so carefree and, if he was being brutally honest, a bit too chilled for such things as she chatted away to Robert - wasn’t exactly ‘serious assistant to a superhero team’ material. But apparently, Robert was wrong.

Robert hadn’t been exactly welcoming when she’d first crossed his path a few months ago; something that Robert was quite ashamed of (amongst many other things), but Dawn had been persistent for some reason, despite his rudeness and his repeated assurances that he wasn’t interested in whatever she was offering. After his first few rebuttals, she’d tracked him down, finding him in a pub of all places, and dived straight into telling him all about who she worked with and what they did and how it just so happened that they needed a new member of the team and that  he was exactly the sort of person that would fit in perfectly.

Robert had scoffed a little at the suggestion as he’d downed the last of his pint, but then Dawn had fixed him with a searching look and told him that maybe it was time for him “ to do something about it ”.

At first, Robert had wondered what the hell she was going on about (although he’d had a sneaking suspicion that he already knew), but then Dawn had casually reminded him that she lived with a powerful telepath and was, herself, currently training to develop her own newly-discovered telepathic skills, so she knew that Robert had some demons that he needed to put to rest. Anger had surged through Robert at her words and what she was clearly insinuating. How dare this woman, who was practically a stranger to him, be reading his mind and having free access to all of his darkest, most painful secrets? He hadn’t wanted anybody reminding him about his past and all the things he should’ve done differently and how if he had...He’d had to stop himself - allowing his thoughts to go down that path never ended well and he’d known that he would probably wake up in some stranger’s flat, hungover to hell, if he didn’t shake off the anguish that Dawn’s words had ignited. 

Despite that, he had found himself itching to react. It wasn’t like he was going to harm her in any way, but he’d wanted to lash out with his words if nothing else. 

Before he could, Dawn had calmly told him that she hadn’t been reading his mind, but she could pick up on the feeling of ‘needing to do something’ rolling off Robert in waves and it didn’t take being a telepath to know that Robert had been running from his past for too long. Apparently she knew what that looked like based on her own experiences. 

That had given Robert food for thought and, when Dawn had left him in the pub, he’d starting wondering about what could be. He’d kept wondering when he’d gone back to his flat on his own. And he’d still been wondering when he’d woken up the next morning. 

Robert had met up with Dawn several times after that: trying to find out more about what she was suggesting, trying to answer the questions that kept going round and round in his head. He was curious. He wanted to know more about what the band of superheroes did and he definitely wondered why Dawn thought that he would fit in.

Apparently, it had taken her quite a while to find him. He wasn’t surprised: he’d fallen off the grid after being kicked out by his father and he’d not even been in contact with his own family for years. For all they knew, he could be dead. 

But Dawn had an ace up her sleeve in the form of a member of her team with a special knack for tracking people down. The youngest person Dawn worked with had been using her psychic navigation to locate mutants for a while and had recently been using it to try to find someone that would fit in with their group. 

She’d been unsuccessful for weeks, but one day, completely out of the blue, she had stumbled upon Robert and had immediately felt that he was the one.

Robert was still sceptical. He wasn’t sure that picking someone based on a ‘feeling’ was the best way to choose a new member of a team of heroes, but he wasn’t an expert. He also didn’t want anyone to have chosen him because they felt sorry for him or could pick up on the fact that his life was basically a disaster and he lurched from one failure to the next, one disappointment to the next. He’d been on his own for a long time and, no matter how much he pretended to himself that that meant he was free to do what he wanted to, he couldn’t deny that he was lonely. But he had no-one to blame for that but himself. He’d forced himself to stop thinking about it all: he didn’t want to remind himself and he didn’t want Dawn to pick up on his self-pity when they met up. 

Dawn seemed very fond of the friends that worked alongside her. She was happy to fill Robert in on some information about them, smiling as she described them, but then she had stopped herself and told Robert that it was probably best to meet them and make his own judgements. 

So all Robert knew was that he would be meeting a teleporter, a man with feline physiology (who Dawn got a little twinkly eyed over when she described him), a young female telepath (who was the one who had somehow located Robert from miles away) and someone with enhanced strength and telekinesis, but that was about it. 

He wasn’t too worried though – he liked meeting new people; he could talk to pretty much anyone and, despite how much of a car crash his life had become, he knew he could turn the charm on when it mattered and have people eating out of his hand. He’d always had the gift of the gab. And putting on the cocky, confident front was something he’d perfected over the years. He knew he could impress when he needed to make a first impression that would last. 

After months of meeting up with Dawn, Robert was finally going to be introduced to the rest of the group. Even though Dawn seemed like a pleasant enough woman, Robert still couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe he was making a mistake. Was he really cut out for this? Dawn certainly seemed to think he was. But Robert was good at doubting himself. He liked to act confident, but deep down, he was always questioning himself. Was he really good enough? Was he doing the right thing? Would he let someone down? It was those thoughts that had led him from his car and up to the front door of the massive house that Dawn had given him the address for. 

He was apprehensive and would probably be wondering if he was a fool for quite some time, but he wasn’t planning on letting anyone down  ever again. He was going to do the right thing and he was going to stand up and make a difference.

He rang the doorbell and then shifted from one foot to the other agitatedly while he waited for Dawn to answer.

It wasn’t Dawn that pulled the door open. Instead, it was a blonde-haired young woman with an inquisitive look on her face. She could only have been eighteen or nineteen years old. 

“You must be Robert,” she stated.

“I must be,” Robert replied with a smile. “And you must be…”

“Liv,” the woman supplied. “I thought that Dawn would’ve told you about us, or shown you a photo or something.” She seemed pretty blunt, like she didn’t feel the need to bother with any pleasantries, but Robert kind of liked that. 

“She did tell me about you – a bit,” Robert said. He felt a little bit weird just standing around on the doorstep.

Liv looked at him closely for a long moment and Robert felt nervous under her gaze. 

“Well, come on in then,” she eventually said as she beckoned for Robert to enter. She closed the door behind them as Robert stared around the large hallway with slightly wide eyes. He hadn’t realised that the house would be quite so huge. However, regardless of its size, Robert automatically felt at ease inside. There was a calm atmosphere about the place and it felt like a  home . The scent of something delicious was wafting through to the hall and Robert’s stomach actually growled lowly at the smell. When he looked at Liv, he saw that she was watching him a raised eyebrow and obvious curiosity still all over her face.

“Who’s this?” another voice called from behind him and Robert spun around to face a young man with dark hair and a friendly smile. 

“Robert,” Liv said bluntly as she gestured to him. “This is Matty,” she added as she nodded at the man. 

“Nice to meet you,” Robert offered. 

“You too,” Matty replied. He wasn’t hiding his scrutiny of Robert any more than Liv was and Robert felt a bit like a new attraction in a zoo. 

“Can you get Ellis and tell him to get a move on with lunch?” Liv interrupted them before either of them could say anything more. “He’s in the kitchen already. And I’ll tell Dawn that her visitor has arrived. Just wait right here,” she added as she looked back at Robert. 

Robert was a bit bewildered by what was going on and was about to reply when Matty disappeared right in front of his eyes. Robert had seen people teleport before but it still startled him. He turned to face Liv and realised that her face was completely motionless and she seemed to be focused on something far away. 

He wondered for a moment if she was alright, but then realised it was just part of her telepathy, and he was just wondering how long he’d be left alone for, when Matty suddenly reappeared in front of him smiling knowingly as if he was well aware of how he’d caught Robert off-guard.

“I’m glad you didn’t move,” Matty laughed. “Otherwise I might have landed right on top of you.”

Robert’s eyes widened. “Don’t you have more control over it than that?” he asked, wondering if that question was a little rude, but ultimately wanting to know the answer.

It didn’t seem to bother Matty though, as he chuckled. “Of course I do. I was just kidding. I’m not sure I’d be much use if I just kept landing on people. That’s not to say that I don’t  occasionally have accidents. I’ve caught some of this lot in some interesting situations since I’ve been living here.” He waggled his eyebrows at his own comment. 

Robert was about to retort that he didn’t want to know any details, when a new voice interrupted their conversation.

“Matty, stop trying to scare the new bloke.”

Both Matty and Robert turned their attention to the opposite side of the hallway, where a another man was making his way towards them.

Robert knew that this man had to be Ellis. Everything about him was cat-like: the way he nimbly made his way across the floor without making a sound as he moved; the way his eyes were fixed on Robert with absolute focus; the way every movement seemed smooth.

“I wasn’t,” Matty replied and he was pouting like a toddler. “You’re supposed to be making lunch, not coming out here to be nosey.”

Ellis’s eyes flicked to him and narrowed slightly.

Robert wondered briefly if he was about to get told off, but then Ellis’s attention was back on him.

“I’m Ellis,” he said as he stuck out his hand.

Robert shook it firmly and nodded at him. “Robert,” he replied.

“Apologies for Matty,” Ellis continued. “He likes to show off in front of new people.”

“Rude,” Matty said simply. Suddenly he reached out to grab at Ellis, attempting to ruffle his hair and Ellis sprang away from him immediately, landing on the stairs gracefully.

The next thing Robert knew, Matty had disappeared and was suddenly beside Ellis on the step. He watched in bewilderment as they started pushing and attempting to grab each other. He couldn’t help but smile as Ellis dived at Matty only for him to disappear right in front of him leaving Ellis to land carefully on the ground. They were both laughing loudly and mocking one another’s uselessness, so at least Robert knew that they weren’t actually trying to hurt one another.

“Children, children,” Dawn’s bright voice suddenly cut across their yelling. “Stop showing yourselves up in front of Robert. You’ll scare him away before he’s got started. Thanks, Liv,” she directed at the younger woman and Liv nodded before she gave Robert one more searching look and then turned to walk away. 

It was all a bit strange and Robert wondered whether he’d made a bad impression somehow, but he was distracted by the two men nearby who were still giggling like naughty school boys. 

Dawn gave them a look and Matty and Ellis both stood up straighter and tried to wipe the grins off their faces as they sent a last playful glare in each other’s direction.

Dawn made her way over to the three of them and smiled widely. “I’m glad you’ve all been introduced and this is probably all for the best,” she said as she waved her hand at Matty and Ellis. “At least now you’ve seen them in their natural state of ridiculousness. I promise it’s not always like this though.”

Robert just shrugged and smiled. “I grew up with a younger sister,” he said with a smile. “I know what kids are like.”

Dawn just smiled as she grabbed Robert’s arm to guide him out of the hallway.

“Go and check on the dinner,” she directed at Ellis over her shoulder.

“It’s nearly done,” Ellis called after her. “I just came to meet the new guy.”

Something fluttered in Robert’s chest at the words. He hadn’t actually agreed to joining them yet, but being the potential new member of the team made him feel oddly pleased. 

“Good,” Dawn said. “And don’t be sneaking any before we get back.”

“As if I’d dare,” Ellis muttered as he rolled his eyes with a smile and wandered off in the opposite direction. Eventually, Matty followed him after sharing a long, meaningful look with Dawn.

“So, you decided it was worth it then?” Dawn asked as they walked into the living room. She guided Robert towards the huge window in the room so they could look out over the sprawling land that the house was set in.

“Yeah,” Robert answered. “I figured it had to be worth the risk. I want to make a difference and use my gifts for something other than messing about.”

Dawn smiled at him and nodded. “Then, you’ve made the right decision.”

After a moment of silence, both of them still looking out of the window, Robert spoke again. “When you said you all lived together, I was picturing some little house where you were all crammed in like students – not anything quite so…impressive as all of this,” he said as he waved his hand around.

A wide grin split Dawn’s face as she chuckled at Robert’s comment. “It is pretty impressive, isn’t it? The house actually belongs to Liv and Aaron - they came into some inheritance and decided to put it to good use. And what better use can there be than helping other people? We’re lucky, Robert. Lucky to have these powers that mean we can do amazing things and lucky to have the opportunity to use them to do good things. I’m not willing to waste that.”

Robert looked at her steadily and could tell that Dawn was incredibly passionate about what she did. She really did want to help people and make the world a better place. That was something that Robert could definitely get on board with. He’d come to realise that he couldn’t spend his life drifting along, doing nothing and not ever making things better. 

“So, I don’t want to look like I’m showing off or anything, but I bet you’d like a tour right?” Dawn suddenly asked. She looked giddy and was practically bouncing up and down on her toes and the sense of excitement was contagious.

Nodding eagerly, Robert agreed and allowed her to lead him back out of the room.

As they walked, Dawn pointed out various rooms and features of the house. When they passed windows, she explained about the grounds that the house was set in, telling Robert about how they used the extensive space for training in the better weather. They went upstairs and she showed Robert the room that would become his, if he made the final decision to stay, and then they wandered back along the landing towards a lift.

“We’ll take this down to the basement,” she said as she pressed the button to call it. “That’s where we do most training exercises: it’s pretty well kitted out.”

A quiet ping announced their arrival in the basement and when the doors opened, Robert nearly staggered backwards in shock. ‘Pretty well kitted out’ had to be the understatement of the century. The space was immense and seemed to continue in all directions as far as he could see. There were doors leading off to specially equipped training rooms and racks of weapons for close-combat training fixed to the walls. A massive, complex system of computers with the biggest screen Robert had ever seen was arranged in one corner.

Dawn was beaming at him brightly as she urged Robert out of the lift. She looked like a cross between a proud parent showing off her baby and an excited kid unveiling her new toys.

Robert was sure his mouth was probably flapping open but, for once, he just couldn’t find any words to explain what was going through his mind. This was insane. But it was also probably the most exciting thing he’d ever seen. And he couldn’t get over the fact that it was all being shown to him because he had the chance to actually join this group.

Dawn was talking animatedly about the various equipment and areas of the basement as they walked and Robert was trying his best to absorb everything.

As they made their way further through the basement, Robert became aware of a regular, thumping sound echoing around the space. He was still trying to place what it was when Dawn brought him to an abrupt halt. 

A little way in front of them there was glass wall, creating a partition around a room. The thumping sound was coming from within the room and Robert realised that there was a man inside driving his fists into a large punching bag. The bag was suspended from the ceiling by incredibly thick chains, but still it looked to be struggling against the onslaught aimed at it.

Without realising he was moving, Robert had stepped closer to the glass wall around the room. He watched, transfixed, as the man’s muscles moved beneath his sweat-covered T-shirt, as he threw punch after punch at the bag. When he eventually stopped, he rested his forehead against the bag for a moment. Then he suddenly looked up and his eyes locked with Robert’s. He was gorgeous - like something straight out of one of Robert’s most wonderful fantasies. He had the bluest eyes that Robert had ever seen and he could do nothing except gaze at him, almost unblinkingly. The man just stared back at him and Robert could see the muscle in his jaw clenching. After a long moment of staring intensely, the man tore his eyes away from Robert and began slamming his fists into the bag again.

“That’s Aaron,” Dawn said quietly from beside Robert.

Robert jumped a little at her voice. For just a moment, he hadn’t even been aware of her presence next to him. He dragged his eyes away from the sweaty man - Aaron - to look at her face.

“He spends a lot of time down here,” Dawn continued, as she took Robert’s elbow gently and guided him away from the glass.

Robert wanted to know more: he felt like he had questions bubbling up inside him that he wanted to have answered immediately but he didn’t understand why he felt so curious. Shaking his head a little, as though to clear the strange feeling that had descended over him, he pushed all of his questions down: he didn’t want to seem nosey after all.

It seemed that Dawn wasn’t going to be giving anything else away anyway as she steered Robert back towards the lift.

“Grub’s up,” she announced cheerfully.

When Robert looked at her questioningly, Dawn just tapped the side of her head with a mock-serious expression on her face. “Liv let me know. She likes to use her powers for good - obviously.”

Robert laughed as Dawn pressed the button in the lift and the doors slid closed.

In the kitchen, Ellis was busily piling steaming food onto six plates when Robert and Dawn entered.

“Right on time,” he smirked at Liv knowingly. “I thought we’d eat in here; didn’t really want to do the whole formal dining experience.”

“Fine by me,” Dawn told him before gesturing that Robert should take a seat at the large breakfast table that they would be gathering around to eat at.

“Is Aaron coming up?” Matty asked.

Liv made a non-committal sound as she shrugged a little. “I’m sure he’ll be on his way.”

Robert assumed that she’d sent him the same message about the food being ready. 

Then she became silent and a look of concentration, and slight frustration, settled on her face. After a few minutes, her face softened again and she joined back in with the conversation.

The five of them sat around with their food chattering happily. Matty was full of questions for Robert and he didn’t seem to have any filter on what came out of his mouth. Robert was already feeling quite at ease with the group of them. They were interesting, intelligent and funny, and a little bit weird, which made Robert feel right at home in their presence. He felt like they had already accepted him and he just knew that the way they were behaving was how they would have been even if he wasn’t there, which made him feel completely welcomed.

After a while, Ellis turned his head towards the archway leading into the kitchen and fixed his eyes on the space. The others all followed his gaze and a few moments later Aaron walked into the room. He glanced around the gathered group and his eyes locked on Robert again.

“Aaron, this is Robert,” Dawn said brightly, although the smile looked a little forced.

Aaron didn’t speak; he just stared at Robert.

“Nice to meet you,” Robert offered with a smile.

Still Aaron didn’t speak; instead he walked to the counter and picked up his plate. Then he turned around and started to walk out of the room.

“Aren’t you going to sit with us?” Liv asked. She sounded sort of hopeful but also like she already knew what Aaron was going to say.

“I’ve got stuff to do,” Aaron spoke for the first time, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at them.

Robert watched as Liv’s shoulders slumped a little and Ellis focused back on his food, pushing it around his plate half-heartedly with his fork.

The atmosphere in the kitchen had changed so dramatically that Robert could hardly keep up. He wondered how Aaron could be a part of this team if he was so different to the rest of them. 

Since he had arrived, he had received nothing but welcoming smiles and friendly laughter from Matty and Ellis, he’d already known that Dawn was easy to be around, and even Liv, who seemed to be constantly assessing him, seemed to be friendly enough. But Aaron was the complete opposite. Not only did he seem to be totally uninterested in Robert’s arrival, he seemed to be causing a bad vibe with the others too. He hadn’t even thanked them for his food; he’d hardly spoken to any of them and couldn’t even be bothered to greet a guest in the house. He seemed like he was a bit of a dick actually and Robert couldn’t help but wonder why the others wanted him around. He glanced around the group again and then saw Dawn’s troubled face watching as Aaron walked away. 

As he left the kitchen, Dawn was out of her seat immediately and she followed him out into the hallway. The nosey part of Robert wanted to lean forward so he might catch what she was about to say to him, but it seemed they’d moved too far away. He sat back in his seat and continued with his food in a much more subdued setting. 

“Aaron,” Dawn called to her friend’s retreating form.

“Dawn,” Aaron said as he stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn around.

She caught up with him and moved to stand in front of him. “What are you doing?” she asked as she looked at him seriously.

“Taking my food upstairs,” Aaron answered simply.

Dawn huffed out an exasperated breath. “Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?” Aaron countered awkwardly.

“You said you’d make an effort,” Dawn said, sounding a little sad.

“No, you asked me to make an effort and I said I’d try my best,” Aaron told her flatly.

“So this is your best then?” she continued. She shook her head, trying to shake the annoyance from her tone. “Look, I know this is hard for you…”

“You don’t know anything,” Aaron interrupted her abruptly. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

“I want you to try to accept that this is happening. I want you to try to be alright with it. I want you to realise that this is the best for our  team ,” Dawn said as she looked at Aaron steadily.

Aaron’s jaw clenched, the muscle twitching beneath the skin. 

“I will try my best for you, Liv, Matty and Ellis. But I just need some time…to get my head around this.” With that, he side-stepped Dawn and started making his way up the staircase.

Dawn watched him go, wondering how long it would take for Aaron to move on from the things that had emotionally scarred him so terribly. She sometimes wondered if Aaron would  ever move on. He had been so devastated by Jackson’s death and he had become so closed off that, at times, he was hardly recognisable. He still cared deeply about his friends and his little sister. That was obvious in the way he always looked out for them when they were on missions. But sometimes that seemed buried so deep that Dawn was scared that Aaron would be emotionally shut down forever.

Aaron’s emotions were very flat when he was around his team. While Dawn would cry over an advert about abandoned kittens on the television, and Liv would fly into a rage over something trivial, and Ellis would nearly wet himself with laughter about something completely ridiculous, Aaron was always steady, always in control of his emotions.

Of course, Liv could feel it, and Dawn was beginning to do so too with her developing skills. They knew that Aaron was terrified of letting go. He was terrified of unleashing his emotions and  feeling . He was scared that his anger would take hold and he would lose control; he was scared that he’d break down and never stop crying; he was scared that he’d laugh too much and then feel guilty about being happy.

In two years, nothing had changed. Aaron had been the same since the day that they had buried Jackson. Dawn had decided that it was time for something to change: they couldn’t go on as they were. None of them could. She just hoped that she was right and that introducing Robert to the team was the change that they all needed.


	3. 2

Robert had moved in. He hadn’t taken any persuading – not in the end. As soon as he had set foot in the house, he had realised that it was what he wanted. He was determined to become a valued member of the team and he was determined to prove to himself that he could be truly good at something and make a difference in the world.

Matty and Ellis seemed to be genuinely enthusiastic about his presence and Dawn had just given him a confident smile as if to say that she had known all along that Robert would be joining them. Liv had been watching him closely, and he’d wondered if she was reading him - trying to figure him out - but she’d seemed pleasant enough and welcomed him like the others. 

The only issue was Aaron and his apparent lack of interest in Robert.

Whenever Robert was there, Aaron was quiet - practically silent. The others all made up for it, but Robert was wondering if it was him that Aaron had a problem with or if Aaron was always that difficult to get along with. He kept his thoughts to himself, not wanting to say anything out of turn and upset the others, but he couldn’t help but try to figure Aaron out. He had tried to start conversations with Aaron or drag him into conversations; Aaron was like a brick wall, unyielding and blank.

After a few days of settling in, Dawn had suggested that Robert got into a training regime. Before he could do that, Matty and Ellis had excitedly insisted that Robert showed them what he could do. So far, Robert hadn’t displayed his abilities in front of them at all and Matty in particular seemed to be dying for a demonstration. Dawn had agreed that it was a good idea as it would help them to devise a training plan that complemented Robert’s strengths and gave him areas to develop.

Rather nervously, although he was doing his best to put on a good front and hide his true feelings, Robert had met them all (including Aaron) in the basement. He was happy to show off what he could do, but usually the people watching were just amazed by his powers. He’d performed simple little tricks in bars and clubs when he was chatting people up in the past and always found that his ‘gifts’ had merely helped speed up the process of getting someone back to his place. Now, he knew that he had to impress to prove that he was worthy of joining this elite team: this wasn’t a game, it wasn’t about showing off and flirting, and it wasn’t about having fun.

Liv showed Robert into one of the larger training rooms. Along one wall was a window and as Liv told him to just go for it, Robert saw Matty, Ellis, Dawn and Aaron appear at the glass. Matty was grinning excitedly and Robert couldn’t help but chuckle at his enthusiasm. Liv patted him on the shoulder and quickly disappeared out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her. 

When Robert glanced at the window, Liv was standing next to Aaron giving him a thumbs up and a grin.

Robert swallowed thickly and wondered where to start. He closed his eyes and breathed slowly in and out a few times. He always found that his powers reacted better if he was calm. That wasn’t ideal for a person aiming to be using his powers in potentially life-threatening situations, but Dawn had reassured him that they would develop some strategies to help him keep focused in the field.

He lifted his right hand, palm facing upwards, breathed out deeply and then there were clouds floating near the roof. His fingers twitched and the clouds instantly turned dark and rain began pouring from them. Closing his hand into a fist sharply, the rain instantly stopped and the clouds disappeared. He extended his fingers again and swirled his arm before him and a violent wind suddenly whipped up. Robert circled his arm and the wind curled into a tornado that moved around the room wherever he directed it.

He felt completely alive all of a sudden. He didn’t have chance to do anything on this scale very often. It wouldn’t have gone down that well if he’d started making tornadoes and storm clouds in his block of flats, so he’d not had chance to let loose for a while.

The tornado was still spinning around, pulling at his clothes and blowing his hair wildly around so he squeezed his fingers together slowly and it gradually quietened. 

But he wasn’t finished. 

He raised both hands towards the roof and, after a long moment of concentration and clenching his jaw, he brought them down by his sides rapidly. The flash of lightning was dazzling and the rumble of thunder that tore through the room almost immediately afterwards was almost deafening: the whole room seemed to shake with it. Robert pressed his hands together firmly and closed his eyes briefly before he felt the surge of energy building within him. His eyes snapped open and he moved his hands apart. Stretching between his fingers were crackling forks of lightning. He spun round and shot his hands out. The lightning cracked across the room in a flash, striking one of the target boards in the centre and setting it on fire. Robert smirked to himself and created another storm cloud which he calmly floated over to the board and set about making it rain to extinguish the fire.

The door to the room was ripped open a few seconds later and Liv, Dawn, Matty and Ellis came rushing in, grinning and clapping him on the back, congratulating him on how amazing his powers were. Robert grinned back, he couldn’t help it. But when he looked back at the observation window, he saw that Aaron wasn’t there anymore and somehow that seemed to suck a lot of the excitement out of the moment.

*** 

Robert’s training began immediately. Dawn had created a structured programme for him to follow which included working on his own developing his skills and also working alongside the others.

After seeing Robert’s demonstration, Dawn was convinced that he would be able to fly if he could manage to control the wind he created and use the thermal currents. Robert was a little sceptical but was willing to trust her and see what came of it. The first few attempts resulted in Robert landing in rather undignified heaps on the ground, in bushes or, even one time, in the lake, as he attempted to control his air manipulation. Each time he failed, he brushed himself off and started again. He wasn’t going to give up.

So far, Robert’s training had seen him partnered up with both Matty and Ellis. Dawn had created tasks for them to complete in order to see how, and if, their powers would work cohesively.

The training had also involved being pitted  against Matty and Ellis. In the hand-to-hand combat sessions, Robert was clearly lacking experience and often found himself pinned to the training mat by one of the others.

He’d been expecting to be beaten by Ellis. The other man was strong and agile and his feline reactions were unbelievably fast: Robert knew he had a lot of work to do to beat him. 

But he hadn’t been quite as concerned about Matty winning their fights. At first, he’d been sure he’d hurt Matty - with him being much more slight in frame than Robert - and he’d held back as they’d met in the training ring. When Matty had sent him sprawling onto the floor without too much effort, he’d realised he didn’t need to worry. He was feisty and scrappy and he certainly knew how to hold his own. When Robert had stood up to face Matty again, he’d merely tilted his head and grinned that cheeky grin at him, and he hadn’t held back anymore. And he wasn’t too proud to admit that Matty was better at fighting than he was. He had a lot to learn. 

He was willing to accept that it was an area he needed to work on and knew that it was to be expected. The rest of the team had spent years working on these skills and Robert was a long way behind them. But he just added it to the list of things that he was determined to master.

When it came to using their powers, Robert felt that things were much more even. While Matty would teleport in and out of view, Ellis would be leaping around gracefully avoiding Robert’s attacks. A friendly rivalry developed between the three of them and Robert enjoyed every second of it, even though he left his training sessions sweaty, exhausted and aching.

Once, he had correctly predicted where Matty would land and had produced a small tornado that wrapped him up and sent him spinning across the room while Robert laughed. Another time he had created a sheet of ice beneath Ellis so that when he landed, rather than being graceful, he slipped over immediately and fell straight onto his arse, which sent Matty and Robert into a hysterical fit of laughter, especially when they saw Ellis attempting to stand up looking rather disgruntled.

More than once, Robert had seen Aaron watching their training sessions. He wondered why Aaron didn’t just come and join them. Maybe if he took out some of his pent up anger in a training session with them, he wouldn’t be so hostile.

For his part, Aaron actually found himself curious about the new addition to their group, not that he was willing to admit that to anyone. After all, he was struggling to admit it to himself. 

The first time he had witnessed Robert using his powers, he had shrugged it off as fancy tricks and tried not to be impressed, but when he had allowed himself to observe his training with Matty and Ellis, he found that Robert’s control of the weather elements was actually rather remarkable. It had been a while since he had seen anyone get the better of Ellis, yet Robert had left his usually unflappable friend sprawled on his arse on the floor.

While he might have grudgingly been a little impressed, he certainly wasn’t going to let anyone else see that, especially not Robert. He didn’t feel comfortable around him and he wasn’t willing to let his guard down near him; not that he let his guard down much at all anymore. 

Every time that Aaron saw Robert, he was all bright smiles and cocky laughter and Aaron just didn’t think he was taking anything seriously. How could he become a member of their team if he was going to be joking around all the time and winding the others up constantly? He seemed like a risk-taker to Aaron and Aaron didn’t have the time to be watching his back when they were on missions if Robert was going to be flinging himself into dangerous situations just to show off. Aaron wasn’t willing to have any of his team put in danger by someone reckless; he wasn’t ever going to lose anyone he cared about again. If Robert put any of them in danger with his antics, Aaron was personally going to kick his arse and then tell Dawn to make him leave. 

*** 

After several weeks, Robert really felt like he belonged with the rest of the team. Not that he had gone out on any missions with them yet, seeing as Dawn hadn’t allowed it so far. He’d watched a little longingly as they’d loaded up into a car or van on more than one occasion to head out to help with some crisis, but he knew he wasn’t ready to join them yet. 

Still, he felt like things were going well.

His training was successful and the improvement in his skills was obvious. He hadn’t realised that with constant input his powers could become much more honed. 

Liv had told him that they were like a muscle that would only grow stronger with effort. She’d told him how when she had first realised she had telepathy she’d had to constantly work on it to actually be able to use it effectively, but she’d smiled in contentment as she’d talked: she obviously felt that the hard work was worth it. And Robert could agree with that sentiment: he’d never felt such a sense of purpose before; he’d never been so eager to get out of bed in the morning so he could get to training; he’d never felt so connected to his powers, despite the fact that they’d been part of him for nearly as long as he could remember. 

Now, he hardly even had to think about what he was doing before he was creating a lightning bolt or covering an area with a dense fog. His powers were reacting instantly to his will and they suddenly felt much more like they were  part of him, physically, mentally and emotionally.

It wasn’t only his powers that were developing. His hand-to-hand combat had improved greatly too and, while he still hadn’t managed to outdo Ellis, he had bested Matty on a couple of occasions and he felt pretty good about it.

The training sessions were hard work but they always had a laugh. Robert was of the opinion that a bit of fun made things more enjoyable and, while he understood that ultimately they had a serious goal, he liked to lighten the mood wherever possible.

Aaron had even started joining them for some of their sessions. Robert was pretty sure that that was Liv’s doing when he saw the grateful little smile on her face whenever Aaron turned up to meet them. Aaron would just nod at his sister and then turn back to the others with a serious expression on his face.

The first few times Aaron had joined them had been weird and Robert had felt out of place. He had carefully watched the interactions between Aaron, Liv, Matty and Ellis hoping to pick up some hints about how he should get Aaron on side but never came away feeling any more knowledgeable. Robert told himself that he was only watching so intently for that reason but the reality was that he was a bit in awe of Aaron. 

Aaron was obviously physically strong; the power in his body was hard to miss and he clearly knew how to throw a punch. But he was also mentally powerful. Robert had gaped a little as he had watched Aaron move huge objects using his mind, with what appeared to be minimal effort. It was certainly impressive and Robert often found himself thinking about it when he was away from their training sessions. When he caught himself daydreaming about Aaron, he always felt a bit weird and shook the thoughts from his head. But it happened more often than he would care to admit.

***

It was a glorious day so Dawn had decided that training might as well take place outside. All of them made their way through the gardens to an area away from the house (‘in case of any wayward projectiles’, Matty had declared a little too cheerfully) to a fairly decent sized clearing amongst the trees.

“I think it’s time for you and Aaron to square off against one another,” Dawn announced to Robert as she smiled brightly at him. 

“What?” Robert replied in shock. “Do you really think that’s a good idea? I think he might have just been waiting for an opportunity to kill me and you’re just handing it to him.”

Dawn rolled her eyes at Robert’s dramatics, but was still smiling. “He isn’t going to kill you, Rob. That’s against the rules.”

Robert scoffed at her words. “Well, I don’t fancy getting beaten to a pulp either,” he retorted with a grimace.

Dawn clapped him on the back firmly. “Then move fast,” she told him with a cheeky grin.

Robert narrowed his eyes at her. “Cheers for that advice. Don’t know what I’d do without you.”

She laughed, patted Robert on the back once more and then wandered off to sit on the grass near the trees. 

“First one to tap out loses!” she called merrily from her position as she clapped her hands together. “Let’s get ready to rumble!”

Robert was looking at her with an incredulous look on his face. Liv, Matty and Ellis had taken up positions beside her. The four of them looked like they should have brought some popcorn and drinks along to enjoy whilst they watched the showdown.

Robert turned around and looked across the clearing. Aaron was stretching like Robert had seen him do many times before and he wondered for a moment if he should have taken things a little bit more seriously. Then he shook his head. He wasn’t like Aaron; he didn’t need to take everything seriously and act like a grumpy arsehole to everyone. His skills had come on such a long way over the last few weeks and he knew that he could do this. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly; then he moved forwards.

Aaron had been watching him and, at Robert’s movement, he too stepped further into the clearing.

The two of them just stared at one another for a long time: it was like a scene out of an old Western, as their audience wondered who would make the first move. Both Aaron and Robert seemed to decide to act at the same moment so as Aaron started running towards him, Robert created a dense fog in front of him with a wave of his hands. 

Robert had decided that the best way to win against Aaron would be to keep out of his way (rather like he had decided to do in their day-to-day lives) so was planning to use his powers to evade Aaron wherever possible. He knew that if Aaron got hold of him, he was done for, seeing as Aaron’s strength was far superior to his own.

As the fog settled, Robert skirted around the edge of the mist he had created, so that he could be behind where Aaron was standing. While he was hidden from view, the only problem was that Robert couldn’t see Aaron either, so he had no idea how Aaron was reacting or what his next move would be.

Robert didn’t need to wait for long to find out, as suddenly, seemingly from the other side of the clearing, huge branches were being hurled in his direction. There was a loud cracking sound every so often before another chunk of tree came hurtling towards him. Aaron seemed to be throwing the branches at random so he obviously couldn’t see Robert but that wasn’t helping Robert as he couldn’t see Aaron either.

After what seemed like an exhaustingly long time of leaping around avoiding flying branches, Robert realised that he needed to be able to get eyes on Aaron. He created a powerful wind and blasted the fog away in seconds, leaving both himself and Aaron visible again.

Aaron spun around to face Robert. There were beads of sweat on his face and Robert was pleased that he wasn’t the only one who was finding the experience hard work.

Neither of them had chance to recover though, because Aaron lifted his hand and another branch snapped off a nearby tree. Using his telekinesis, he flung the branch towards Robert forcefully. In a split second, Robert created a bolt of lightning and struck the flying branch mid-air. A huge crack ripped through the air and the branch split in half, both parts flying off in different directions until they landed on the ground as two charred, smouldering pieces.

Aaron narrowed his eyes at Robert in frustration. And then, with his mind, he sent out a force that started to push Robert backwards.

It was a bizarre feeling for Robert as he struggled to gain any grip on the grass beneath his feet. He could almost  feel Aaron’s hands pushing against him, forcing him backwards, but Aaron was on the other side of the clearing with his hands outstretched, not close enough to reach him. He must have looked ridiculous, pushing back against an invisible force, his feet scrabbling on the ground uselessly.

Robert twisted his head round and realised that Aaron was going to pin him against the trunk of one of the trees and then he’d be trapped. It was useless trying to push back against the force and he racked his brain for a way to stop, or at least slow down, his assailant. He was steadily moving closer to the trees but he managed to lift his arms towards the sky. Quickly, he brought his arms back to his sides and a deep rumble of thunder erupted. The shockwave it caused was much more intense than the first time he had shown off his trick, thanks to his training, and the ground shook fiercely beneath his feet. He suddenly found himself falling towards the ground and only just managed to put out his hands to break his fall. Glancing up, he realised that the tremor had actually knocked Aaron off balance and the force that he was using against Robert had disappeared.

Robert quickly clambered back to his feet in readiness for Aaron’s next attack. However, he wasn’t prepared to be lifted completely off the ground. Aaron was looking up at him determinedly as he held him suspended in the air with the power of his mind.

Robert struggled, but again he could feel an invisible force working against him. A dark cloud appeared above Aaron and suddenly it was pouring with rain right above him. Within seconds, his clothes were soaked and his hair was plastered down to his head, but he refused to relinquish his hold on Robert.

Robert was staring down at Aaron intensely, wondering what he should try next. Aaron was returning the look with an equally focused expression on his face.

Just as he was wondering if Aaron was planning to either throw him or drop him and he’d have to test out his novice flying ability for real, Robert heard a loud, clear voice in his head.

“Stop!” the voice commanded.

Instantly, Robert evaporated the cloud above Aaron and in the same moment he found himself lowered back to the ground.

Both Aaron and Robert looked at each other with equally surprised faces until Liv approached them with Dawn. 

“You stopped us?” Robert asked immediately.

Liv nodded and hummed her affirmation. 

“Far too easily,” she remarked casually and then she looked at Dawn. 

“You’re obviously quite a match for one another – it was certainly interesting watching what you came up with for each other. I mean, that could have gone on all day,” Dawn told them. “But I wanted you to realise something more important than just beating each other. Liv managed to stop you using telepathy and neither of you saw it coming. I know,  technically , she wasn’t supposed to be involved but there’s no good being so absorbed in each other that you don’t notice someone creeping up on you.” She threw both of them a pointed look and Robert wondered what the hell that was supposed to mean before she continued. “I think we should all head inside. I’m sure you two want to get freshened up.”

Matty, Liv and Ellis turned and started wandering back towards the house, chattering away and pushing and shoving as usual. Dawn gave the pair of them one last look before she followed them. 

Robert and Aaron lingered for a moment: they looked at each other but didn’t hold the eye contact for long. Then they set off to follow the others back inside in silence.

Robert made his excuses as soon as they got back inside the house and headed straight up to his room. He needed a shower - a cold one - because he’d realised after the thrill of their battle was over, that he was completely turned on and rock hard in his joggers. The fight with Aaron had been intense; he’d never experienced anything like it. He’d never met anyone that pushed him like Aaron did. And he didn’t think he’d ever been so attracted to anyone before either. The only problem was that Aaron still seemed to really hate him. 

***

A few days after Aaron and Robert’s training session, Dawn had invited Robert down to the basement. It wasn’t part of his scheduled training routine so Robert was curious what she wanted with him.

Once they were in the basement, Dawn led Robert through to the equipment room, grinned widely at him and then presented him with a suit bag.

“I really hope this isn’t a tuxedo,” Robert said with a raised eyebrow.

She laughed brightly. “Take a look,” she waved her hand at the zipper.

Robert looked at her questioningly but reached for the zip eagerly. He hooked his fingers around it and pulled it down a few centimetres. After peeking inside, he looked up at Dawn sharply.

She was still grinning manically and nodded enthusiastically.

Robert looked back at the bag and pulled the zip all the way down. Sliding the suit bag away completely, he pulled out the outfit concealed inside. The suit was the same style as the ones he had seen the others wearing for missions: his was a dark navy, edged with bright blue and silver.

He swallowed thickly as he ran his fingers across the material of the suit.

“I thought blue would be a good colour for you – I hope you like it,” Dawn said, shaking Robert out of his thoughts.

Robert looked up at her, a smile playing on his lips and his eyes sparkling with excitement. “I love it,” he replied. “Does this mean…am I…part of the team?”

Dawn laughed and patted him on the shoulder firmly. “You’ve been part of the team for a while, Rob, but now I guess it’s official. You’re all ready to go now. You’ll be going out with the team next time they go on a mission.”

The beaming smile on Robert’s face was enough to tell Dawn that he was delighted and she laughed again. “Come on, you’d better take that upstairs and try it on.”

It seemed impossible but somehow Robert’s smile grew even wider. He carefully draped the suit over his arm and walked back towards the lift with Dawn.


	4. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ‘Jason’ is prison Jason, but I couldn’t find his surname anywhere so I used the actor’s surname instead.

“What’s up, Dawn?” Matty asked as he plonked himself down in the chair next to her. 

Robert approached the computer station too, downing a bottle of water after his workout with Matty. 

Dawn was staring intently at one of the computer screens. “There’s been another report of a missing mutant in the city. That’s the third one in two months.” She glanced over at Matty beside her and chewed on her lower lip agitatedly. “There’s something weird going on and I don’t like it.”

“We should look into it then,” Matty announced. “We might be able to find something that the police are missing.”

Dawn nodded her agreement but before she could say anymore on the subject, an alert starting flashing on the screen and Matty and Robert’s phones starting beeping in their pockets. Dawn quickly read the message on her screen before turning to face them. 

“Looks like it’s time to get suited up,” she said with a wink.

All three of them ran towards the equipment room and Matty and Robert grabbed their suits from their respective positions hanging along the wall before disappearing behind the partition to get changed. 

Just as Robert was pushing his arms through his sleeves, Aaron, Liv and Ellis came bursting into the room to grab their own suits. Robert didn’t miss the look that Aaron sent in his direction as he pulled up the zip of his suit but he couldn’t worry about Aaron’s issues with him right now; he had to focus on the task at hand. Dawn relayed information to them as they prepared and then told them she’d keep in contact with them from the house. 

The five of them piled into the car with Ellis in the driver’s seat. He sped out of the parking area of the basement and through a tunnel before they burst out into bright sunshine.

“There’s a bank robbery in progress. Armed suspects have civilians trapped inside as hostages. The police are reporting that there’s already been one shooting, a security guard, and they can’t risk any further injuries,” Dawn’s voice informed them through the hi-tech communication system in the car as they headed into the city at high speed. “The priority is to protect and rescue the hostages: catching the bad guys is our secondary objective.”

The whole team nodded in understanding. Aaron asked several questions to find out more about the situation and Robert could hardly believe it – he didn’t think he’d heard Aaron use so many words the whole time he’d been living with them, let alone all in one conversation. He was obviously passionate about what he did; he obviously wanted to be able to help people.

When they arrived at the scene, there were police cars parked in the street outside the bank and armed officers scurrying about. There were other police officers ensuring that members of the public and the press were kept back behind a cordon.

The five of them climbed out of the car and Liv immediately approached the officer in charge requesting an update. When she returned, she looked serious but determined.

“Okay, there are three men in there. They’re all armed. It’s unclear how many hostages there are, reports are suggesting around twenty. The gang are negotiating with the police, but while they’re focused on that, we should be able to sneak in. There’s a secondary staff entrance to the rear, so I suggest we head for that. Matty, if you can try to see inside as best as you can through the front, you should be able to teleport in, take Ellis along with you.” 

Matty immediately dashed over to the cordon so he could peer inside the bank to get an idea of where he would be landing. “Matty and Ellis can catch them by surprise while the rest of us go in the usual way. Aaron, you can take care of the door,” Liv continued.

Robert marvelled at her as she spoke. She was the youngest member of the team, still just nineteen years old, but she was so mature at times. She was in control of this situation and giving out orders to people older and more experienced than herself. It was obviously something that she’d trained for when she’d joined the team, like all of them, but he still couldn’t help but think about how he’d been at the same age and compare how very different their lives were. 

Once Matty had re-joined them, they all ran to the back of the building and prepared for action. 

With synchronised actions, Aaron slammed into the door, knocking it down with one blow, as Matty grabbed Ellis and they both disappeared.

There were angry shouts from inside as the criminals realised that someone was entering the building. The three of them all moved in the direction of the door but then spun round with wide eyes when Matty and Ellis appeared behind them. One of them raised his gun but before he could fire, a powerful wind had whipped up inside the foyer of the bank and the man was carried across the room, landing in a heap against the wall, his gun skidding across the polished floor. Matty grinned in appreciation at Robert, whose hands were still outstretched, before he quickly made his way towards the cowering hostages. He spoke calmly to them before taking several of them by the hand and disappearing from sight along with his passengers. 

The other two men looked furious and they both raised their weapons. They started firing, causing Robert, Liv and Aaron to scatter out of the way before they were hit. Ellis leapt up and kicked one of them in the back of the leg, causing the man to crumple to the floor. He was tough though and he spun around where he was lying and began firing at Ellis. Ellis’s agility allowed him to dive out of the way but his attacker continued firing.

From her position behind a desk, Liv reached out to the mind of the man. The rage was a powerful force at the front of the man’s mind, the desire to shoot Ellis and escape was almost overwhelming, but Liv pushed through those emotions. She spoke calmly inside the man’s head, telling him to stop firing and to drop his weapon. The man complied almost instantly and Ellis dived forward to snatch the gun away from his reach.

Matty had been quietly removing the terrified customers from the bank and had nearly rescued them all when the remaining robber turned his gun towards the small group that was left. One of the women screamed as a bullet exploded from his gun but then the bullet seemed to stop in mid-air. Aaron was standing to the side with an intensely focused expression on his face; his hand was shaking as it reached out in the direction of the bullet. He clenched his jaw and then the bullet suddenly dropped to the floor harmlessly with a clatter.

“You fucking freak,” the enraged criminal yelled as he stepped towards Aaron. He continued moving forwards quickly, only to suddenly slip over and fall backwards with a thump.

The floor was covered in a sheet of ice and Aaron looked over at Robert with an unreadable expression on his face.

Robert felt like offering him a sarcastic, “You’re welcome,” but thought better of it and held his tongue.

Ellis was the best equipped for dealing with the man now as he nimbly made his way over the patch of ice towards the irate would-be robber. He was just about to grab for the gun when the man, who had scrabbled towards it on the ice, managed to reach it first: he swung his arm towards Ellis and squeezed the trigger. In such close proximity even Ellis would have struggled to get out of the way, but as the weapon fired, Matty appeared alongside Ellis and in the blink of an eye the two of them had vanished.

Aaron’s face contorted with fury as he pounded over to the man who was still lying on his back, arm outstretched with the gun in his hand. The weapon was wrenched from his fingers before Aaron even got close and crushed into an unrecognisable lump. When Aaron reached the man, he grabbed hold of his jacket, pulled him up and then punched him in the face. There was a crack as bones broke beneath Aaron’s fist and the man’s eyes rolled back in his head. Aaron dropped him to the floor with a look of anger and disgust before he scanned the room to check on his teammates. Realising that all of them were standing around the room in one piece, all three of the criminals were incapacitated and all of the civilians were safe, his face fell back to its careful, calm expression.

Eventually, the five of them made their way out of the bank with the three robbers restrained. After a debriefing with the police, they headed back towards the car. The journey back to the house was filled with excited chatter and recounts of the ‘best’ parts of their mission. They were all full of enthusiasm apart from Aaron who was his usual quiet self. Ellis had opted out of driving home and had left the responsibility to Aaron, who seemed quite content to zone out of the animated conversation going on around him and focus on the road.

When they got home, they all made their way to the equipment room to shed their suits. As they pulled their casual clothing back on, Ellis continued congratulating Robert on a job well done for his first mission. Dawn had come down to join them and congratulate them on their success. 

“I think we should celebrate tonight,” Ellis announced.

“We could go out somewhere special for dinner,” Liv suggested from the other side of the partition wall that separated the male and female changing areas.

Robert was more than a little pleased that the others were so impressed with his contributions to their mission but when he caught sight of the scowl on Aaron’s face his elation was squashed.

As soon as he’d dropped his suit into the laundry basket, Aaron stomped out of the equipment room. This time it was Liv that quickly went after him, as she too was already changed back into her regular clothes.

Robert, Matty, Dawn and Ellis could hear them talking outside.

“Are you going to come out with us tonight, Aaron?” Liv asked. She sounded hopeful but Robert was pretty sure he knew what the answer was going to be. It was such a shame because, since Robert had discovered that Liv was Aaron’s sister, he’d thought about how hard it must be for Liv to have her brother constantly shutting her and everyone else out. While Aaron was clearly incredibly fond of Liv, he couldn’t seem to muster up the energy to even be cheerful for her benefit. Robert supposed he could understand that in some ways: he’d lost contact with his own sister because of what had happened to their family.

“Why would I do that?” Aaron answered gruffly.

“To celebrate,” Liv echoed Ellis’s words. “We did well today; the bad guys are locked up, we saved everyone. Robert had a really successful first mission…”

“Successful?” Aaron echoed. “He nearly got Ellis shot with that stupid stunt with the ice. I’d hardly call that  successful .”

“But Ellis didn’t get hurt, so what’s the problem?” Liv asked.

“It was reckless and it’s things like that that get people killed.” Aaron told her angrily.

“Well, it was also what stopped  you getting shot, so Robert saved you,” she argued.

“I don’t need saving ,” Aaron erupted immediately.

There was silence outside the room as Dawn looked at Robert almost nervously and Ellis suddenly found his suit deeply fascinating. 

The sound of heavy footsteps signalled Aaron’s departure and then Liv reappeared in the doorway. She looked upset as she shared a sad look with Dawn but she forced a watery smile onto her face as she made eye contact with Robert.

“What do you fancy for dinner? It’s your choice,” she said, with slightly false cheeriness.

“We really don’t have to go out, you know,” Robert replied. He didn’t want to be the reason for any trouble between this group that had been together long before he’d come along. He certainly didn’t want to be the cause of a rift between Liv and her brother. He was already well aware that Aaron didn’t like him and he knew that his presence was causing some tension so he really didn’t want to add to that.

“Yeah, we do, mate,” Ellis piped up. “No arguments, we’re celebrating you being a fully-fledged member of this team. It’s really official now - you’ve saved lives and everything!”

Robert huffed out a laugh. “Go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. How do you feel about a curry?”

***

Days past, then weeks, and Robert had been out on several missions with the team. Each one was different: some incidents were more serious, while others were easily dealt with. Sometimes Liv would join them in the field and on other occasions she would stay at the house with Dawn to direct them using the communications system she had set up.

One thing stayed the same though and that was the way that Aaron treated Robert. He kept him at arm’s length and Robert couldn’t help but think that if Aaron had his way, he’d probably keep Robert on the other side of the country.

The only time they really communicated was when they were on missions. Robert didn’t miss the incredulous, and often irritated, looks that Aaron sent his way whenever he did anything remotely risky. Robert was well aware that he was impetuous but he would  never have done anything that would endanger the lives of any of the rest of the team or any civilians that they were dealing with. But Aaron obviously thought that Robert was a hazard to them all. If he wasn’t ignoring Robert, he was shooting looks of scorn in his direction.

On one or two rare occasions, Robert had felt the burn of someone’s eyes staring at him and had looked up to find Aaron watching him intently. In those unusual moments, Aaron didn’t look like he wanted to punch Robert. He actually looked like he was trying to figure something out; he looked like he was lost in thought. But as soon as Robert caught his eye, he would tear his gaze away and his expression would slip back to the less than impressed look that Robert was used to seeing. Robert had no idea what was going through Aaron’s mind and he was pretty sure that he didn’t want to know because he was pretty sure it involved all of the ways that Aaron might crush Robert’s skull if he got the chance.

***

When Robert’s phone started beeping, he knew what it meant without having to check the screen. He quickly made his way to the basement and joined Aaron, Matty and Ellis pulling their suits on. Liv and Dawn were hovering in the doorway relaying information as they got changed.

“Facial recognition on our surveillance system has picked up Jason Cook. He’s been wanted for the past year for the murder of his ex-girlfriend but there’ve been no sightings of him in months. It seems like he’s resurfaced and he’s heading into the city on foot. He’s a mutant with water manipulation abilities and he’s shown that he’s not concerned with hurting people – the last time the police tried to apprehend him, he nearly drowned several officers,” Dawn warned as they started to file past her towards the car. “I’ll keep you up to date over the comms.”

Aaron was in charge of driving and they zipped along at high speed following the directions that Dawn was sending them.

As they approached a bridge over the river, Aaron slowed the car to a crawl as she informed them that Cook was in the vicinity. They caught sight of him just as he started walking onto the bridge and Aaron stopped the car. The four of them climbed out and set off after him, not wanting to alert him to their presence yet.

“Do we really think this is wise?” Robert asked as they hurried after him. “We’re about to tackle a water manipulator right above a  river . Doesn’t anyone else think that this is playing into his hands a bit?”

Aaron cast a withering look at him. “We can’t risk him getting any closer to the city. The more people that are around, the more people will be at risk. We take him out now.”

Robert could see the logic behind that, but he still didn’t like the idea. However, he wasn’t in a position to argue with Aaron so continued forwards with the rest of the team.

They moved quickly and were soon close enough behind him to make themselves known. “Jason Cook,” Aaron called out. “We’re here to take you into custody.”

Cook stopped in his tracks and turned around slowly. He eyed the group before him and sneered.

Aaron took a step forward and Cook stretched out his arms. A surge of water came rushing from his hands straight for them and they all scattered. Cook kept up the stream of water, following them wherever they moved. He managed to create two separate blasts, one with each hand, which meant that he could keep them at bay. 

Robert and Aaron didn’t have time to stand still for long enough to create any form of offensive and Matty was so busy disappearing and reappearing in various places attempting to avoid the water that he couldn’t get close.

One of the high-velocity streams caught up with Robert at one point and knocked him clean off his feet, sending him rolling across the bridge. He had never realised how powerful water could be, but as he struggled to catch his breath, he knew that this man couldn’t be underestimated. Both Aaron and Matty were soaked and Aaron’s black suit was ripped at the chest where the water had caught up with him and actually shredded straight through the material.

As Cook was focused on the other three, Ellis leapt up onto the barrier at the edge of the bridge and scampered along it gracefully. He used it as a walkway and found himself close to Cook without him even realising. From his higher point, he leapt down and wrapped his arms around their attacker from behind. The streams of water ceased as Cook struggled against Ellis’s strong grip.

Ellis was clinging on tightly as Cook tried to shake him off, but then the other man somehow managed to elbow Ellis in the ribs and, as the hold on him was loosened, Cook twisted around where he was standing. Ellis straightened enough to punch him in the face but it wasn’t enough to stop the blast of water that erupted from Cook’s hands. The full force of the water hit Ellis square in the chest and he flew backwards like a ragdoll.

For a moment, it seemed like time had frozen as Ellis’s red and gold clad body twisted through the air. His teammates watched on in stunned horror as the water pushed him over the railing of the bridge before dispersing, leaving Ellis to plummet downwards out of view.

“Ellis!” Aaron roared and it was almost as if he had flown across the bridge himself because he was leaning over the railing in an instant. His arms were outstretched as he focused everything on preventing his friend from crashing into the river below. Ellis’s limp body was suspended in mid-air once Aaron had managed to stop his descent and then he concentrated on carefully drawing Ellis back up. As he did so, he turned his furious face towards where Cook was still standing watching him with a smirk on his face. He obviously thought that Ellis had fallen to his death. He turned around then and lifted his arms. Further downstream, a huge wave rose out of the river at his command and starting heading towards the bridge at a terrifying speed. If it struck while they were standing on the bridge, they would all be washed away.

Aaron’s eyes widened before they flicked to where Robert and Matty were standing together watching, concern for Ellis still all over their faces.

“Put him down ,” Aaron commanded firmly.

Both Robert and Matty were jolted into action. They obviously both thought that Aaron’s order was directed at them because they both reacted at the same moment.

Just as Robert created a bolt of lightning and sent it straight at Cook, Matty appeared right beside him.

It was an awful moment as Robert watched the electrical current strike Cook in the chest and send him spinning away, because in the same moment Matty was flung to the side from the force of the blast. His body crumpled and he lay unmoving on the ground. 

The roaring wave that Cook had created crashed back down into the river leaving everything suddenly eerily silent.

“ Matty ! Oh shit, Matty,” Robert was calling as he ran towards him. He fell to his knees beside him and immediately shook him in an attempt to rouse him. There was a tear along the arm of Matty’s suit and the skin of his arm was marred with a branching, red mark that ironically looked a lot like a lightning strike.

“Matty?  Matty ? Please wake up. I’m so sorry; please wake up,” Robert was begging and still shaking him desperately.

The groan that came from Matty was possibly the best thing that Robert had ever heard. “Wuh…what…happened?” Matty managed to say as he squinted up at Robert in confusion.

“You got caught by my lightning. God, I’m so sorry, Matty. Are you alright? Are you in pain?” Robert’s hands were fluttering across Matty like he didn’t know what to do for the best. He  didn’t know what to do. “Dawn?” he called, knowing that she was connected to them all by their earpieces and the communication set-up within their suits.

“Go ahead, Rob,” she responded in his ear.

“We need help. Cook’s down but Matty and Ellis are going to need medical attention,” Robert informed her, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Ambulance is already on its way to you, Robert,” she replied. “Keep them both calm; keep talking to them. I’m monitoring their vitals from here.”

Robert breathed out a sigh of relief at Dawn’s calm words. He glanced over his shoulder to see Aaron supporting Ellis against the barrier of the bridge. He was talking to him quietly, rubbing his arms gently, but his eyes kept flicking over to Matty, checking on his other friend. It looked like he desperately wanted to run over to see if he was alright but he couldn’t abandon Ellis.

Robert turned back to Matty, who looked like he was about to fall asleep, his eyes drooping heavily. Robert shook him gently again.

“It’s not time for a nap yet,” he said with a weak smile.

“’m tired though,” Matty protested. “And my arm hurts.”

“I know,” Robert said softly. “But help’s on the way and then you can get some rest.”

He could hear the sound of sirens approaching and he focused on that to keep himself calm. He turned around to check on Ellis again and found Aaron glaring back at him. His mouth was set into a grim line; his jaw was clenched. He looked like he was about to explode with barely contained rage and Robert was sure that if Matty and Ellis weren’t hurt, Aaron would have walked up to him and punched him.

Robert shook his head sadly as he turned back to Matty. Everything had been going so well, despite Aaron’s dislike of him, but now it seemed like irreparable damage had been done.

***

Robert was sitting on his bed in his room – alone.

They had all returned from the hospital, weary and sore. Dawn and Liv had come down to meet them there and had spoken with the doctors about Ellis and Matty’s injuries. Ellis had two cracked ribs thanks to the sheer force of the water and was generally feeling bruised. Matty had suffered some burns to his arm and some (fortunately minor) nerve damage from the current. He had been lucky: Cook had received the full force of Robert’s blast and was now lying comatose in the hospital with the doctors unsure that he’d ever wake up. If he did, he’d be facing a long time in prison; if he didn’t, Robert couldn’t find it within himself to care. The man was a violent thug; he’d killed his ex-girlfriend and he’d attacked Robert’s team, without any care that he’d tried to send Ellis tumbling to his death and had been prepared to wipe them all out with the tsunami he’d created in the river. Robert wouldn’t spare him any further thought: it was part of his role in this team to stop people like him by any means necessary. 

Both Ellis and Matty had been released from the hospital and allowed home, but both of them were under strict instructions to rest.

The drive back to the house had been awful. Aaron took Ellis and Matty in one car, while Robert travelled back with Dawn and Liv, not wanting to be near Aaron and not knowing how to face Matty. Not a lot had been said by any of them and when they had arrived home, Robert had taken himself upstairs straight away.

He had been sitting on his bed for a long time. He had removed his suit and left it in a pile on the floor as he pulled on a loose pair of jogging bottoms and a t-shirt. He felt terrible. The guilt of what he had done, however unintentionally, was weighing on him heavily.

And an awful realisation had come to him: he was going to have to leave. The others would want him gone after what he had done. Aaron had never wanted him there in the first place, had been looking for a reason to get rid of him since he’d arrived, and now he had every reason to demand that he left. The thought of it left Robert feeling hollow. He loved it here; he loved living and working with these people. For the first time in so long he felt like he had a purpose; he felt like he belonged. And now it was all ruined. He didn’t know how he was supposed to go back to his old life after being part of something so amazing and worthwhile.

He pushed himself off the bed suddenly and marched to his wardrobe. He couldn’t sit there feeling sorry for himself and waiting for Aaron to come and yell at him and tell him to go. He flung the doors open and pulled out his bag. Just as he threw it onto the bed and unzipped it, there was a quiet knock on his bedroom door. He stilled in his actions and turned to face the door. He braced himself for what was to come before he called out, “Come in.”

Robert was surprised to find that it was Matty who pushed the door open and stepped into his room. He looked tired and incredibly pale. His arm was still bandaged and he held it slightly awkwardly.

“Matty, what are you doing up? You’re supposed to be resting,” Robert told him.

“I know,” he replied. “And I will go and rest, but I had to come and see you first.”

Robert hung his head and drew in a few deep breaths. Eventually, he looked up and held eye contact with Matty for a long moment. “I’m so sorry. I know that isn’t enough to make up for what I did but I want you to know that I never meant to hurt you. I’m so, so sorry.”

Matty looked confused. “What are you talking about, Rob?” he asked. “You don’t need to apologise.”

“Yes I do,” Robert told him immediately. “You could’ve been killed. I  hurt you.”

“Not on purpose though,” Matty argued. “Besides, I think the scar will look pretty cool - I’m thinking of turning it into a tattoo.”

Robert’s eyes widened at his words: just one more thing for Aaron to hit the roof about - a permanent reminder of what had happened. And yet again, it would be all Robert’s fault.

“You don’t need to apologise to me,” Matty continued, seemingly oblivious to Robert’s discomfort.

“I do though…” Robert started but Matty cut him off.

“What’s that?” His eyes were fixed on the open bag on Robert’s bed. “What are you doing?”

Robert looked at him guiltily.

“You’re  leaving ?” Matty asked and he sounded shocked and angry and disappointed all in one.

Robert couldn’t look him in the eyes so he focused on the carpet instead. “I thought you’d all want me to go.”

“Robert, this is crazy,” Matty said desperately. “How could you think that? It was an accident. It was my fault as much as yours. I thought Aaron was telling me to deal with Cook and you thought the same. It was just a mistake. Do you honestly think that this is the first time that something like this has happened?”

Robert finally looked up at those words and Matty gave him a wry smile.

“We’ve all ended up hurting each other unintentionally at one time or another. We all feel bad about it but you have to learn from it and move on.”

“But you’re like this well-oiled machine and I don’t want to mess that up,” Robert said as he shook his head.

“You don’t mess it up,” Matty said insistently. “You’ve brought so much to this team. Things have been so much better since you came and joined us. You can’t leave us - we  need you.”

“I’m not so sure Aaron would agree with you,” Robert grumbled.

The smile on Matty’s face slipped at that and he looked sad for a moment before he composed his expression.

“He’s going to want me gone after this,” Robert continued. “He already hated me: now he’ll positively despise me. You’re his friend and I ended up hurting you.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Matty said quietly. “And I’ll talk to him about this,” he said gesturing to his injured arm. “It’ll be fine. He just…he has some demons…and he needs time. He’s not a bad person. He’s a good friend and I love him like a brother, but…just give him some time. Please.”

Robert looked at Matty and wondered what he wasn’t saying. He wondered what demons Aaron had and why the others all seemed to let him be quiet and brooding so much of the time. He also realised that he’d be a fool to walk away from people who were so loyal to one another.

He gave Matty a small smile and nodded his head slightly. “You need to get to bed.”

“I’ll only go if you promise to still be here in the morning,” Matty said with a half-serious look on his face.

“I promise I’ll be here, Matty. I’m not going anywhere,” Robert reassured him.

“Good,” Matty said as he backed out of the door, “because you belong here.”

Robert’s smile widened; he really liked the sound of that. For the first time since they’d got back from the hospital, he felt like he could breathe easily. 


	5. 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A conversation (finally), some angst (because this is a fic by me!) and a nice long chapter.

It had been a quiet few weeks for the team as Matty and Ellis recovered from their injuries and Dawn refused to let them go out on any missions. As a result,  none of them went out on any missions. She said that if they weren’t all together, they just weren’t a team.

No-one had mentioned anything about Robert leaving. Even Aaron had been notably quiet about it. Robert had been expecting a full-blown bollocking from Aaron after what had happened, but no such thing had occurred. He wondered which one of the team had told Aaron to drop it and guessed it was probably Matty: whoever it was, he was extremely grateful.

The guilt he still felt about accidently injuring Matty was enough in his own mind without Aaron adding to it and threatening to kick him out.

The enforced downtime meant that Dawn had been able to spend some time looking into the missing mutants that she had been monitoring for several months. She was trying to establish a pattern in the disappearances but nothing was obvious. It concerned her that mutants seemed to be being targeted. As she had looked into the reports further, she had found that there were actually more missing mutants than she had initially been aware of. She had originally thought that there were only three, but after going back further through police reports, she’d actually discovered at least seven disappearances over the last year. And that was only people that had been reported: what if there were other mutants that no-one had informed the police about?

One of the missing mutants  had been found. But it hadn’t been good news. The body of a young male empath had been discovered in an alleyway in the city. According to the police report, he had looked emaciated, his skin paper-thin and littered with bruises, including angry red wounds around his wrists indicating that he’d been restrained for some time. The actual cause of his death was unclear.

Dawn had shuddered as she had read the report; something about it made her skin crawl. She had shared her concerns with the rest of the team and they had all agreed that it was something that they should look into.

***

Robert had spent a lot of time training by himself while Ellis and Matty were taking it easy. He was looking forward to them getting back on their feet as he was getting pretty lonely during his workouts. He missed the banter and jokes they shared and generally just missed having company.

When he arrived in the basement one morning, he made his way towards the gym. As he pushed the door open and stepped a few paces inside, he stopped in his tracks when he realised that Aaron was already there.

Aaron had his back to the door. His hands gripped a bar above his head as he pulled himself up and down. The muscles in his back strained against his t-shirt and sweat had gathered across the material making it stick to him as he moved. For a moment, Robert was frozen in place. His mouth had gone inexplicably dry and he knew his eyes were wide as he drank in the sight of Aaron’s body.

It struck him again that Aaron was bloody gorgeous. He’d spent so long trying to understand why Aaron was so cold towards him and seemingly so shutdown - he had no idea why Aaron seemed to dislike him so much and was such a miserable arsehole - but he couldn’t miss the obvious. Aaron was beautiful and if the situation was different, Robert would have already tried to charm his way into his bed. 

Robert licked his lips and backed away from the scene before him. He really didn’t want to get caught staring and he was sure that he couldn’t focus on anything in the gym while Aaron was there, all hot and sweaty. Besides, he was also sure that Aaron wouldn’t be keen to share his workout time with Robert, since he obviously wasn’t a fan.

As he backed away, he collided with the edge of the door that hadn’t closed fully behind him and caused it to bang.

“Shit,” he muttered as Aaron released the bar and whipped around to face him.

“Sorry, I...uh, I didn’t mean to disturb you,” he added, looking up at Aaron and trying to focus on his face rather than his heaving chest.

Aaron watched him without speaking, for what seemed like an eternity to Robert who was desperate to escape. “Did you want me?” he asked eventually.

Robert’s eyes widened at the question, then he shook his head a little, trying to shake inappropriate thoughts from his mind. 

“Um, no…no, I just…I was going to use the treadmill, but I can…um, go outside,” he trailed off and wondered why he was suddenly so incapable of stringing a coherent sentence together.

Aaron’s eyebrow lifted slightly. “It’s raining,” he said simply.

“Oh…yeah, I know that. Um, I’ll probably give it a miss then,” Robert replied. He made to back away again hoping to walk out without crashing into anything else but Aaron’s voice stopped him.

“You should stay,” he said. “I mean…if you want to. You don’t have to leave just ‘cause I’m here.”

Robert blinked at him rapidly in confusion. “Stay?” he asked, then cleared his throat. “I don’t want to get in your way.”

Aaron shrugged slightly. “You won’t. There’s plenty of space down here.”

“Okay,” Robert said as he stepped back into the room a little more. “Okay.”

Aaron nodded once before turning back towards the bar and Robert quickly averted his eyes. It was one thing being asked to stay, it was another thing entirely to stare at Aaron while he was working out. He made his way over to the treadmill, set it up and hopped on. Hopefully, a good run would take his mind off other things that threatened to distract him.

Quite a while later, Liv wandered into the gym. She looked between where Aaron was now lifting weights to where Robert was lying on a mat doing crunches and her eyebrows rose in surprise. As she made her way over to a bike, she smiled curiously at Robert and sent a questioning look at Aaron. Both of them nodded once at her in acknowledgement and returned their focus to what they were doing.

When Robert left the gym much later, he felt really good. He’d had a successful workout and even though there hadn’t exactly been a deep and meaningful conversation between himself and Aaron, he still felt like actually being able to stay in the same room was definitely progress.

***

Once Matty and Ellis were back to full fitness and ready to go back out with the team, Dawn was keen to get them investigating the missing mutants. Unfortunately, they didn’t even get chance to start before she received a report that a second body had been found.

The six of them made their way to an empty warehouse on an industrial estate on the outskirts of the city. The police and crime scene investigators were already there, swarming all over the building and around the outside, painstakingly searching for evidence. They were led inside the building and taken towards the back wall, where a crumpled body was lying on the floor. All of them watched sadly as the medical examiner looked over the body. The detective leading the investigation spoke as they continued watching.

“We’ve had a positive ID that the victim is Gerry Roberts. He was twenty-two, between jobs and from the city. He’d been reported missing by a friend but no family have come forward. His body was discovered this morning by the security patrol so we know he was left here some time between this morning’s early patrol and yesterday’s.”

“Based on the condition of the body, I would estimate that he has been dead for around three days,” the medical examiner supplied.

“Any idea of cause of death, doctor?” the detective asked.

The medical examiner shook his head. “Nothing obvious I’m afraid, until I get him back to autopsy. The body is in the same condition as the last mutant we discovered: he seems terribly gaunt - almost shrunken - bruising in various places, abrasions around the wrists.”

Dawn was making notes as the men spoke. When they seemed to have finished, she asked her own question. “Do you know what his mutation was?”

The detective flicked through his own paperwork. “Um, let me see...Fire manipulation,” he replied.

A strange stiffness seemed to sweep over Dawn, Liv, Matty and Ellis as they all immediately looked towards Aaron, whose eyes had glazed over as he continued to stare at the body of the deceased young man before them. Robert had no idea what was going on – the atmosphere had changed so suddenly.

“Mate…” Ellis started, but Aaron just shook his head, turned on his heel and walked swiftly away from the scene.

Dawn, Matty, Liv and Ellis shared a concerned look before Liv quickly followed Aaron out of the warehouse. Robert looked at the remaining members of the team, hoping for some sort of explanation but received nothing.

They finished up at the scene quickly and made their way out to the car. They found Aaron and Liv leaning against the bonnet; Aaron was staring off into the distance; Liv a quiet presence beside him.

At their approach, Liv looked up and smiled weakly. Aaron didn’t make eye contact with any of them: he merely moved to the front passenger seat and slid into the car.

Robert watched him as he went. He could see some terrible pain in Aaron’s downcast eyes and he suddenly realised that Aaron’s cold exterior wasn’t just about him being an ignorant arsehole: it was motivated by something much deeper. He felt an almost overwhelming desire to find out what it was that had hurt Aaron so much and a strange urge to help him recover.

***

After they had eaten their evening meal and cleared away, Robert decided to go for a walk to clear his head. 

Aaron had been absent from dinner which was a shame seeing as he’d actually started joining them regularly over the last few weeks. No-one had remarked on his empty spot at the table and again Robert felt like he was missing some vital piece of a complex puzzle.

He wandered into the gardens and set off at a steady pace across the lawns. It was a pleasantly warm evening, the sort of night that was perfect for a barbeque or sitting around drinking.

Robert was just approaching the lake when he stumbled to a halt. Sitting beside the lake, facing the water, was Aaron. He didn’t seem to have been disturbed by Robert’s presence and, for a moment, Robert considered walking back the way he had just come and leaving Aaron alone with his thoughts. But something inside Robert wouldn’t allow it and he found himself approaching the water before he felt like he’d even made a conscious decision.

When he reached the edge of the lake, he stood alongside Aaron and stared out across the water.

Aaron looked up at him slowly but didn’t speak.

As he looked down at him, Robert thought that he looked sad and again he felt a desire to help him in some way.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” he asked eventually.

Aaron’s eyes drifted back over to the lake. “I’m not very good company,” he gruffly replied.

Robert wondered if Aaron meant that about himself just on this occasion or in general. He was beginning to realise that there was a lot more beneath the surface of Aaron than he had realised. But there was also a lot more to  him than met the eye too. Maybe that was how he could help Aaron. He sat down beside him on the grass and looked out over the water.

Robert blew out a long breath. 

“Do you know why I agreed to join this team?” he asked. He wasn’t sure if Aaron would answer him or want to participate in any form of conversation. When he received no response, he decided to just carry on talking anyway.

“It probably sounds cheesy but I accepted Dawn’s offer because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to have a purpose and I wanted to help people.”

Still Aaron didn’t speak, but his eyes had moved to focus on the patch of grass beside Robert’s leg.

“Several years ago…” Robert began and then he had to clear his throat and shake his head a little. He hadn’t told anyone what he was about to say in a long time. “Several years ago, my mum...she got trapped in a building that was on fire.”

Aaron’s eyes had snapped up to Robert’s face at those words. They were wide in shock as he stared at Robert.

Robert swallowed thickly. “She didn’t survive.” He blinked rapidly and it was his turn to look out over the lake. “I didn’t save her. I was just a kid - my powers were still unpredictable and I’d never had to use them for anything important before. But if I’d been able to, I could’ve stopped it happening. I could have saved her. I could have done  something . And I started to wonder, what was the point in having these amazing powers if I couldn’t even use them for anything? I couldn’t even use them to save my own mum.

“I was angry and confused and so lost in my own head for such a long time. It broke my family apart and I...I hated myself. I was angry with myself for not being… better …for not using what I had to help her…to help  anyone . And I gave up on everything for a long time. But I wanted to do something to make the world a better place, to stop someone else from finding out that  their mum had been killed…I thought that if I could help even just  one person that would be a start…but I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to make a difference.

“Then Dawn came along and told me about this team. I ignored her offer for a while because, even though I wanted to help, I couldn’t face what she was offering. I couldn’t face it - not when I was still so ashamed about my mum. But Dawn didn’t give up on me. She told me that I could do something about it and that I could work alongside you all and make a difference and I knew it was what I wanted to do.”

Aaron hadn’t taken his eyes off Robert while he was speaking. His brow was furrowed now and he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Then he tried again.

“I’m sorry, Robert. I had no idea…about your mum. That’s… awful,” he finally said.

Robert gave a tiny nod of his head and chewed on his bottom lip for a moment.

“I know you don’t like me very much.”

Aaron opened his mouth as if to interrupt but Robert ploughed on.

“I know you don’t like me very much,” he repeated. “And I know that I sometimes do things that you think are dangerous and I know that you think that I’m not taking it seriously, but I really, really am. I would never do anything to put anyone in danger. I want to do the best job that I can. But…I can’t allow myself to think too much about what I’ve lost and what I could still lose, so putting on a front and sometimes being a bit reckless makes me feel better. It helps to keep me going when I feel like I might give in.”

For a long time, neither of them spoke. Aaron was still watching Robert closely, his eyes travelling across Robert’s face like he was trying to figure something out.

Robert was just thinking about pushing himself off the grass and walking back to the house when Aaron’s shoulders slumped.

“You’re very different to me, you know,” Aaron said quietly.

Robert was a little startled at the words. He hadn’t been expecting much from Aaron. He viewed Aaron as the strong, silent type so was fully prepared to walk away from their one-sided conversation without much input from the other man. But he had at least hoped that Aaron would understand him a little more and would maybe reconsider his opinion of Robert. He had also hoped that maybe Aaron would be able to talk to him, confide in him, at some point in the future.

“I know that people deal with things in different ways but you…well I guess you’ve done a better job of it than me. I suppose I’m not very good at dealing with my emotions,” Aaron continued and Robert hardly dared breathe in case he stopped talking now that he had finally started.

“Before you came, there was someone else on our team. His name was Jackson. He could manipulate fire. And he…he was my…I loved him. But…he died…on a mission.”

Aaron was obviously struggling to get his words out and Robert wondered if he had kept this story locked inside his chest for as long as he had kept his own tale hidden.

“That was over two years ago. I think I maybe had some sort of, I don’t know, some sort of breakdown after he died. Everything seems kind of blurry in my memory, but I know that the last few years have been hard…really hard. I don’t know how, or why, the others have stood by me for so long. I’ve been a terrible friend to them and a terrible brother to Liv. They lost him too…he was their friend and they lost him. And I’ve been so consumed by my own grief that I’ve lashed out at them and pushed them away so many times. But I just don’t know what else to do, how else to act anymore.”

Robert couldn’t listen to Aaron be so hard on himself without interrupting. “They’ve stood by you because they’re your friends…your family,” he said gently. “You can’t blame yourself for reacting like you have…I can’t imagine how hard it must’ve been for you…I don’t know how I would deal with something like that.”

Aaron didn’t speak for a while. His eyes roamed across the lake and the trees in the distance and Robert allowed him the time to get his thoughts organised without pressing him for more. He knew that he had made a massive breakthrough with Aaron by hearing him talk so openly and if that was all he was going to get he could accept that.

“I think I’ve tried to push people away, to keep them at a distance because it’s safer,” Aaron said into the silence. “If you don’t let anyone get close to you, it doesn’t hurt so much when you lose them – at least that’s what I’ve tried telling myself. Like, maybe it’s easier to be on your own. But…it doesn’t work like that, does it? And…I’m scared…I’m scared that one day I’ll push them too far away and they’ll be sick of me, or worse, one day, what if something happens to one of them and I lose them too?”

A lot of things were slotting into place in Robert’s mind. He could picture Aaron giving them all the cold shoulder; he understood the silent conversations the others were having as they exchanged concerned glances; he knew why Aaron reacted so violently when his team were in danger or hurt. Everything Aaron did was motivated by the fact that he was terrified of caring about someone and then having them cruelly snatched away from him. 

Robert sighed deeply. There were no promises that he could make to Aaron. He couldn’t tell him that everything would be alright and that his friends and family would be safe forever – no-one could guarantee something like that. 

“I don’t know if you realise it, but Liv, Matty, Dawn and Ellis love you. They love you so much and I’m pretty sure that they will stand by you through anything. Nothing you can do will push them away – I’m confident about that. And they know that you love them too; it’s obvious, maybe not in what you say, but it’s clear in your actions and the way you look at them.”

Robert looked at Aaron steadily for a while before he continued. “It’s impossible to know what the future holds, and I’m not saying that I have the answers to how you should move on, but I don’t think that you should become obsessed with what  might happen. I think that maybe it’s better to live your life surrounded by the people who care about you rather than spend your time pushing them away only to realise one day that you’ve made a terrible mistake. You need to live for the now so you don’t regret it when you look back on your time.”

After he had finished speaking, Robert fell silent. He didn’t know what else he could say and he had no idea whether his words had had any impact on Aaron at all.

Aaron looked at him thoughtfully for a while before he looked back out over the lake without speaking.

Neither of them moved nor spoke for a long time, both lost in their own thoughts and painful memories that had been brought to the surface for the first time in a long while.

Eventually, Robert placed his hands onto the ground. “I’m going to head back inside,” he said quietly so as not to disturb the calm that had settled around them.

Aaron just nodded but didn’t make any attempt to stand up.

Pushing himself up, Robert brushed the grass off his jeans before turning to walk away from the lakeside.

“Robert?”

He heard his name called from behind him and he stopped and slowly turned around.

The expression on Aaron’s face was the softest look Robert had seen sent in his direction since he had known the other man. There was still a deep seriousness on his face and there was no hint of a smile but his eyes were kinder.

Knowing that Aaron might be struggling to find the words to say, Robert simply nodded at him and smiled faintly. He was rewarded by Aaron mirroring the gesture. Then he turned around again and wandered back towards the house.

Despite having opened up about things that he preferred to keep buried and finding out the distressing reasons for Aaron’s behaviour, he felt lighter somehow as he made his way inside.

*** 

There was a subtle change in the atmosphere in the house over the next few days. It wasn’t as if Aaron had come bounding down the stairs the day after his conversation with Robert and suddenly become the life and soul of the party, but something was different. The usual tension that seemed to fill the room whenever Aaron walked into it was no longer present.

The morning after their conversation by the lake, Robert was pleasantly surprised when Aaron wandered into the kitchen and took a seat at the breakfast table with the rest of them. He even managed to join in the conversation without seemingly being forced to. After the dishes had been cleared away, he had disappeared to the basement to train alone as usual, but breakfast was definitely a step in the right direction.

It was small things like that which were making the change in the house. Nobody was expecting anything massive but even the tiny steps that Aaron was taking were progress and were helping everyone to feel better.

Being the most perceptive out of all of them due to her telepathy, Liv had picked up on the shift in Aaron’s attitude and had also (somehow) guessed that it was something to do with Robert. She had been amazed when Robert had revealed that he knew about Jackson and that Aaron had confided in him, but rather than questioning how such a situation had even occurred, she merely smiled thoughtfully and patted Robert on the back like he’d achieved something wonderful, before she’d wandered away from him.

***

Robert was in the garden hovering a few feet above the grass. Every fibre of his being was focused on staying aloft. He was finding the whole flying thing rather frustrating if he was honest. Creating the wind was no problem, but controlling it to such a precise level that it would actually support him was difficult, and then factoring in the natural thermal currents made it a real challenge. If he lost concentration for a moment while he was mid-air, he knew that he would fall. 

Robert wasn’t afraid of a challenge and he certainly wasn’t a quitter, but he also didn’t want to break his neck while attempting to fly. 

He huffed as his feet made contact with the grass once he let his concentration go. Running a hand through his hair, he turned around and started in shock as he saw Aaron standing nearby watching him. 

“What are you doing?” Aaron asked once Robert had made eye contact.

Robert cleared his throat, feeling a little self-conscious all of a sudden. “Flying,” he replied simply. “Or, at least, trying to.”

Aaron frowned slightly. “It looked more like floating from where I was standing,” he remarked.

Robert’s eyebrows lifted. Was Aaron taking the piss out of him? Or was it merely an observation? 

“Yes, well, it’s harder than it looks,” he started and he knew he sounded a little irritable. “I don’t fancy getting any higher up and suddenly losing my focus and plummeting to the ground.”

Aaron nodded in understanding and then just continued looking at Robert.

For his part, Robert wasn’t exactly desperate to carry on with an audience. He already felt like he was failing miserably without having someone else there to criticise.

“I could help,” Aaron suddenly suggested.

Robert’s face contorted in confusion.

“I could, kind of…spot you, like in the gym when you’re doing weights. If you lost it, or started to fall, I could hold you up until you got going again…like, with my mind,” he tapped the side of his head with his fingers to demonstrate. “At least that way you could practise getting higher without the fear of killing yourself because I’d make sure you didn’t fall.”

Robert was just staring at him in surprise. This was a massive step in their relationship. Not so long ago, he’d been convinced that Aaron would have gladly kicked him out and probably punched him in the face on the way, but now Aaron was offering to help him, was offering to protect him.

He knew he was going to accept Aaron’s offer. He felt like it was the only possible thing he could do.

“Okay,” he said slowly. “But, I don’t want you to hold me up unless I start to fall. I mean, I need to know if I can do it on my own so I don’t want any extra support unless, you know, I look like I’m going to end up with broken bones.”

Aaron nodded once and a small smile pulled at his lips. “Understood,” he replied simply. “Is there some sort of signal I should be watching for?”

“Yes, my blood-curdling screams and flailing limbs will be the secret signal for impending doom,” Robert answered sarcastically.

The smile on Aaron’s face actually widened at Robert’s words before he nodded and gestured that they should begin.

A brisk wind immediately picked up but it was centred on Robert; only the edge of a breeze was wafting past Aaron as he stood watching intently. Robert gave him a long, thoughtful look before he moved his hands downwards and his feet lifted up from the ground steadily. He hovered a few feet above the grass for a minute or so before he looked back at Aaron. Aaron adopted a stance that showed that he was ready to spring into action if he was needed and nodded encouragingly at Robert.

With a deep breath, Robert pushed himself higher into the air. The wind was still whipping around him, his hair was waving wildly, but he felt secure. He felt like he was in control. With that feeling spurring him on, he pushed higher and higher. Every so often, he glanced back at Aaron and saw him completely focused on Robert, his arms out-stretched in readiness.

So far he had only travelled straight up but he wanted to test out his ability to move through the air in any direction. A flick of his hand changed the wind direction and he found himself moving along at a good speed. It was an amazing feeling; so liberating yet almost unreal. He was surprised at how much easier it was knowing that he had back-up just in case he faltered. He changed the wind again and his body followed the movement through the air. Loving the challenge, he pushed himself to go higher still and found himself able to see for miles in all directions. Glancing back down, he could see the now much smaller form of Aaron still tracking his every move through the air.

For a moment, he contemplated letting his control slip just to see if Aaron really would catch him. It was kind of an exciting idea somehow but then he shook the notion from his head. Deep down he knew that he didn’t need to test Aaron like that. He  knew that Aaron would never let him fall. That knowledge made him feel warm inside and filled him with added confidence.

He swirled around in the air for a few more minutes, unable to stop the exhilaration from flooding through him, before he remarkably gracefully brought himself back down to the ground.

As soon as his feet touched the grass, he ran towards Aaron with a huge smile on his face. Aaron was smiling too; he had a quietly pleased sort of look on his face. Robert didn’t think before he flung himself at Aaron, wrapping his arms around his neck and hugging him tightly.

“Thank you! Thank you so much! That was amazing – the most amazing feeling ever. I can’t believe it. Did you see how high I was?” He seemed to have exploded verbally and couldn’t contain his delight at his success. “Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without you, Aaron.”

Robert pulled back then and grinned at Aaron giddily, his arms still around his neck. He seemed to suddenly become aware of the position he was in and his smile faltered a little. He’d practically jumped onto Aaron, who Robert had rarely, if ever, seen engaging in human contact. For a moment, he thought Aaron was going to push him away or wriggle out of his hold but Aaron didn’t move. His eyes were wider now but his smile actually looked almost fond. 

After a long moment of just looking at one another, Aaron patted his back and cleared his throat and Robert took that as his sign to take a step backwards out of Aaron’s personal space.

“It was all you,” Aaron said, a little gruffly. “I didn’t do anything; you didn’t need me.”

“Of course I did,” Robert argued. “There’s no way I would’ve got that high without you. I never would’ve risked it. It was amazing – I can’t wait to do it again!”

“Don’t…” Aaron started but then cut himself off. He stared down at the grass as he chewed on the inside of his cheek. He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Be careful, won’t you?” he said when he finally looked back up at Robert. “Just...don’t do anything crazy. If you need me to hang around again when you’re practising just let me know…I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Robert’s heart swelled in his chest at the words. Aaron was actually concerned about his safety. He tried to use his most sincere expression when he nodded seriously. “I’ll be careful, I promise. And as long as you don’t mind, I’d love you to keep training with you.”

Another smile tugged at Aaron’s mouth and Robert could hardly believe he had been responsible for causing Aaron to smile so many times in such a short space of time.

“Okay,” Aaron nodded, he almost looked a little overwhelmed himself by all the smiling. “Okay, I’m, um, I’m going to head inside…for a bit…I’ll see you later. Well done…on the flying.”

Robert positively beamed at him. “Thank you again…I really mean it.”

With another nod of his head and another quiet, little smile, Aaron turned and walked back towards the house, leaving Robert feeling like he was still flying even though his feet were firmly planted on the ground.

***

Aaron grunted as he moved. He’d built up quite a sweat and maintaining the pace he’d set was hard work. It was definitely going to count as his workout for the afternoon. He had to admit that he was actually enjoying himself and he couldn’t deny that the view was pretty good too. 

“Is that all you’ve got?” Robert called to him from near the roof of the training hall. “I could do this for hours.”

Rolling his eyes at Robert’s cockiness, Aaron launched yet another heavily weighted bag at him.

“We have been doing this hours,” Aaron shouted back. 

“Do you give up?” Robert teased as he hovered above him. 

Aaron’s response was to throw another bag at him with his mind. Robert dodged to the side just in time and grinned down at him once he’d stopped moving, the bag sailing past him to hit the roof before it fell back to the ground with a thud. 

This wasn’t the first time they’d trained like this. Once Robert had got more confident with his flying, it was actually Aaron who had suggested that he needed to work on his ability to maintain flight while under pressure.

They’d started with Robert flying and Aaron throwing tennis balls at him. He’d hit Robert more often than not in their first session, and Robert had even lost focus so much thanks to the flying projectiles that he’d actually ended up back on the ground more than once, but Aaron had been impressed to see that Robert accepted that that meant he had some work to do. 

Being able to fly was great, but it would do more harm than good, and put him at serious risk, if he couldn’t avoid danger while doing it or concentrate on staying up in the air in a crisis situation. 

It had become part of their weekly training and Aaron had been pleased to see how much it was paying off. Robert was so much better at avoiding what was thrown at him and Aaron was really having to put the effort in to catch him out. They’d moved away from tennis balls after a few sessions and started using bags filled with sand because Aaron found they travelled through the air well and he wanted something with some weight behind it to test how Robert would actually cope with getting hit midair. Sometimes Aaron physically launched the bags at Robert and sometimes he used his telekinesis: sometimes he did both at he same time just to really push Robert. It was hard going for him as much as it was for Robert: the exertion it took to keep moving so quickly and also keep his mind working alongside his muscles was tough. And, on top of that, he was constantly watching Robert. Mostly because he was aware that if he caught Robert just in the wrong moment with one of the heavy bags, he could end up tumbling out of the air to the ground and he needed to be prepared to catch him with his mind if that happened. He was helping Robert train, not planning to see him get hurt in the process. He hadn’t mentioned that to Robert, but he wondered if he already knew. He kind of hoped so. 

After their heart to heart by the lake, Aaron had started to see Robert in a different light. He was a kindred spirit in many ways and he seemed to understand Aaron’s heartache in a way that only someone who had suffered in the same way possibly could. Robert knew the same grief that Aaron had lived with for the last few years. 

While they’d been training, they’d started to get to know one another a little better. And Aaron had been surprised to find that he actually liked Robert. He was smart and funny and the cheekiness and confidence, that had once irritated Aaron, actually made him roll his eyes and smile now. 

And, as his eyes followed Robert’s movements through the air above him, he couldn’t help but think how fit Robert was. 

He shook his head a little and launched another bag at Robert, who seemed to flip midair to avoid it. 

“Now you’re just showing off,” Aaron called up to him.

“I don’t think you’re even trying,” Robert told him. 

Aaron narrowed his eyes at him. He could have just grabbed him with his mind and dragged him down to the ground, but he didn’t want to spoil their game too much. Then he wondered when he’d started thinking of it as a game - as fun. It had been a long time since he’d smiled and joked around as much as this when he was training. Robert seemed to bring out the side of him that he’d buried a long time ago. 

Glancing around the training hall, Aaron’s eyes landed on something that might just change the situation. Quickly, he threw three bags up at Robert, who had to take swift action to avoid them all. Before Robert had finished moving through the air, Aaron had lifted the large net that had been bunched up in the corner and moved it with his mind. He flung it up at Robert. 

Robert saw it coming, his eyes widening, but he wasn’t quick enough. Aaron’s telekinesis was too powerful and before Robert could manoeuvre out of the way, the net was tangled around him. 

He cried out in shock, but he was powerless. 

Aaron laughed up at him as he got more tangled and yelled in frustration, but then his arm got stuck in one of the holes and suddenly Robert was falling. 

Aaron’s mind reacted instantly, catching Robert as he fell and gently lowering him down to the ground in a tangled heap. 

He rushed over to Robert, suddenly feeling guilty about his trick. 

“Rob? Are you okay?” he asked as he approached where he was lying on the floor.

“That wasn’t fair!” Robert announced as he pushed the net away from his limbs.

Aaron breathed a sigh of relief that Robert wasn’t hurt, apart from maybe his pride that he’d been defeated. 

“Isn’t there some saying about pride comes before a fall?” Aaron asked as he grinned down at him. 

Robert’s eyes flashed and he pushed himself up from the floor. He took a step towards Aaron and Aaron actually took one back and put himself into a fighting stance. It was just second nature after so many years of training: he didn’t actually think that Robert was about to attack him. 

“You cheated, Dingle,” Robert ground out. There was a wicked little smile tugging at his lips. 

“Yeah? What ya gonna do about it, Sugden?” Aaron asked with a cocky smirk. 

Aaron briefly registered that they were flirting and then he was on his back on the floor. Robert had kicked out and swiped his legs from under him, spun him round and pinned him onto the bundled up net, without him even having chance to react: he’d been so distracted by the look on Robert’s face.

“Well,” Robert said from his position practically lying on top of him, “never thought I’d see the day that would happen.” 

Aaron huffed out a breath. “You...” he started, but trailed off. What was he going to say? You distracted me by being too fit? Your mouth looked really good so I didn’t see you attacking me? He groaned and squeezed his eyes closed as he felt his cheeks heating.

“You do know that I could push you off me right now?” Aaron asked, still with his eyes closed. 

He felt Robert draw in a breath. “And yet, you haven’t.”

Aaron slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Robert who was gazing down at him with a heated look in his eyes. It was more than a look of triumph in their ‘fight’: it was something passionate for an entirely different reason. 

Aaron’s brain seemed to stop functioning as Robert dipped his head and pressed his lips against Aaron’s. For a moment, Aaron didn’t move, but then he surged up to grip the back of Robert’s neck and pull him closer. Their teeth clashed but then Robert’s tongue was in his mouth and Aaron moaned with the sensation of it. One hand roamed down Robert’s back, over his muscles and then back up to grip at the hair at the nape of his neck. He felt frantic like this was everything he wanted and had been desperately denying himself. He wanted Robert. 

He felt Robert press against him more firmly and felt the obvious hardness in his jogging bottoms as he ground himself against Aaron’s thigh. And then his fingers found their way to the hem of Aaron’s t-shirt, slipping beneath the material, his thumb grazing the heated flesh of Aaron’s waist. 

He hadn’t felt like this in years. He hadn’t felt this alive. He’d been so cold for years and now he was on fire. And with that thought he felt like someone had thrown a bucket of cold water over him. What was he doing? For the first time in years, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d thought of Jackson. And now he was lying there being kissed and touched by Robert. He was betraying Jackson and the memory of their relationship.

“No,” he gasped as he ripped his mouth away from Robert’s. He pressed his hands against Robert’s shoulders and pushed him away, sending Robert sprawling backwards onto his arse with the force of it. 

He looked up at Aaron with wide eyes. He looked stunned and hurt and Aaron didn’t know whether it was a physical or emotional reaction. In that moment, he hated himself for causing it either way. 

Robert blinked at him a few times; his fingers touching his lips for a moment. 

“Robert...I...I can’t...” Aaron started.

Robert shuffled backwards quickly and pushed himself to his feet, brushing himself down and refusing to meet Aaron’s eyes. 

“No...no, I’m sorry...I shouldn’t have...I’m sorry.” Robert chanced a brief glance up at Aaron’s face, but then tore his eyes away immediately. 

“Robert,” Aaron tried again. He wanted to explain: he didn’t know how to, but he felt like he should try. 

But it seemed like Robert wasn’t going to give him chance. He backed away a few paces before he turned and walked swiftly across the room and out of the door. 

With a heavy heart, Aaron watched him go. Part of him wanted to run after Robert, stop him and talk to him, but he was too afraid of what might happen if he did. Sighing heavily, he flopped backwards against the net that was still bunched up on the floor. He stared up at the ceiling for a moment before squeezing his eyes closed. 

He feared he’d just ruined everything. 

***

Things hadn’t quite gone back to how they were when Robert first arrived to join the team, but he was pretty sure they weren’t far off. Only now, it wasn’t just Aaron who was quiet, but him too. 

He was absolutely mortified by what had happened. He’d misread the situation and made a fool of himself. And he felt terrible for taking advantage of Aaron in that way. 

He’d found Aaron attractive from the first moment he’d laid eyes on him, but he’d never thought anything would happen between them seeing as Aaron apparently hated him. Then they’d started to get to know one another and had been spending time together and Robert had felt a spark and suddenly he was on top of Aaron and he’d just gone diving in head first without thinking.

And he was so angry at himself. Not only had he spoiled their developing friendship, he’d made a move on a teammate which was probably a massive no, no, and, on top of all of that, and probably worse than anything else, he’d kissed Aaron despite knowing how vulnerable and heartbroken he was about Jackson. He felt like the worst person in the world. 

He couldn’t face Aaron. At least, not socially. He’d been avoiding him around the house as much as possible and it seemed like Aaron was doing the same. 

They’d had to work alongside one another, but they kept everything clinical and professional and as soon as possible they went their separate ways. 

Robert couldn’t help but glance in Aaron’s direction whenever they were close, but he always looked away quickly whenever Aaron looked towards him. He just felt so awful about his behaviour. He really knew how to make things awkward. He decided it would be for the best to keep his head down and keep out of Aaron’s way as much as possible. At least then he couldn’t make things any worse. 

***

Aaron was confused. He’d not been able to stop thinking about Robert and their kiss since it had happened. He kept replaying the moment in his head and he wondered how he’d managed to make such a mess of everything. 

He could hardly believe it, but they’d actually been getting on well before that. When he’d first met Robert, he’d been convinced that he was a bit of a dick and certainly wasn’t a suitable addition to the team. The idea that Robert could replace Jackson in any way had eaten him up inside. He’d been looking for any opportunity to get rid of him because he didn’t trust him and didn’t believe that Robert was serious but, in tiny increments, he’d started to see Robert in a new light. It had taken months but he’d started to warm to him and actually started to enjoy spending time with him. They teased one another and laughed and joked, and they worked remarkably well together. And he couldn’t pretend that he didn’t find Robert attractive. 

He wasn’t sure if he was naive or just completely blind, but he hadn’t seen the kiss coming. He hadn’t realised that Robert liked him in that way, but he found it hard to believe that anyone would want him like that - he was too badly damaged after what had happened with Jackson. Who could possibly want him? Who would want to deal with that baggage? But Robert had seemed so supportive and understanding of his past and he’d revealed his own heartache and given them something else in common. Maybe Aaron had been missing what was right in front of him. 

But when he thought about them together, he felt guilty, like he was betraying Jackson’s memory by thinking of moving on. And he didn’t know if he was even ready for anything anyway. 

Did one aborted kiss mean anything? Was it just a spur of the moment thing that Robert was now regretting? 

Aaron wasn’t great at talking and the mere thought of tracking Robert down to have that conversation was too awful. And it seemed that Robert didn’t want to talk either. He’d been distant since that day and it seemed like he couldn’t wait to escape Aaron as soon as he possibly could. 

The whole thing was just a mess and Aaron didn’t know how to fix it. He didn’t know how to, but he wanted to. And that made him feel all the more confused because if it didn’t mean anything and he wasn’t interested in anything happening between them, why was he so hung up on it? 

***

Another week brought another report of a missing mutant. While the news was worrying and depressing, it actually brought the team something useful.

Dawn had been scouring the police reports for a connection between the missing people; some clue that might hint at what had happened or link those that had disappeared. When the latest report came in, she found what she hoped was a vital lead. The last three people that had gone missing had all visited the same nightclub in the city just days before they had disappeared. It might have been nothing, it might have been a coincidence, but Dawn was convinced that it was worth looking in to.

So, at her suggestion, the six of them arrived at the club dressed for a night out looking like any other group of friends, when they were actually going to try to find out if the club really was a link between the missing mutants.

The nightclub was already busy when they arrived. The music was thumping loudly, the dance floor was crowded and the air seemed thick with heat and the smell of alcohol.

Matty and Robert immediately made for the bar, insisting that they had to blend in with the other customers if they were going to find any useful information, while the others managed to claim a booth and get sat down.

They all spent quite a while at their table scanning the crowd trying to see if anything seemed out of place. A look of concentration had fallen across Liv’s face as she telepathically reached out across the club.

“There are several mutants here,” she shouted over the music to them. “I can’t get a read on anyone with any negative intentions though.”

“I think we’d have been pretty lucky to wander in and find the bad guy just like that,” Ellis called back to her.

Liv shrugged. “We might’ve got lucky.”

“Why don’t we start mingling?” Matty suggested. “We aren’t going to get any answers sitting here all night. If we talk to some people, someone might mention something useful.”

They all agreed that it was a good idea but only Dawn, Matty, Robert and Liv moved from their seats. Aaron was staring across the club; he seemed to be intensely focused on the constantly shifting crowd.

“We’ll stay put,” Ellis told them. “Keep an eye on things from here.”

“Anti-social gits,” Matty yelled at them.

Ellis merely raised his middle finger at Matty and continued sipping on his drink.

The four of them seemed to have no problem starting conversations with strangers and had been steadily making their way around the club casually slipping relevant questions into their discussions.

So far Robert hadn’t found out anything related to the case and he decided to stop off at the bar for a drink. As he turned around from the bar, drink in hand, a solid body bumped into him and sent his drink sloshing out of his glass.

“Shit, I’m so sorry,” a tall, dark-haired man exclaimed from beside Robert. “Let me get you another one.”

It was an obvious and well-used way to strike up a conversation, but Robert found that he didn’t mind all that much. The man beside him was rather attractive; his dark brown hair was styled fashionably, he had lovely green eyes and a charming smile. Robert smiled back at him brightly and accepted his offer. If, in the course of his research, he had to do a bit of flirting with good-looking men and accept drinks from said good-looking men who was he to decline? The conversation flowed easily, with Robert managing to ask the questions he needed to in amongst the other topics.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the nightclub, Liv was picking something up telepathically. Unfortunately, it wasn’t related to their case, but rather it was a feeling of irritation and something else that was making her skin prickle. When she looked across the club towards the booth that they had been sitting at earlier, she immediately located the source of the feeling. Aaron was sitting by himself, Ellis had obviously gone off to the loo or something, and his eyes were fixed on the bar. When Liv followed his gaze, she saw Robert, with his back to Aaron, laughing at something the man next to him had said. She looked back at the table and realised that, behind Aaron, the empty glasses from the evening were floating above their table. They weren’t just floating really, she thought as he looked at them, they were sort of shaking in mid-air.

Liv immediately made her way across the club towards Aaron. She made it to the table just as one of the glasses shattered in the air, sending tiny shards of glass raining down over the table. Aaron didn’t even seem to have noticed: he didn’t so much as flinch. Liv glanced back at Robert and saw the man leaning in close to speak into his ear.  Jealousy? Was that what was making her skin feel like it was crawling?

“Aaron,” she said as she approached her brother and placed a hand gently on his shoulder.

Aaron turned his face towards her and his jaw was clenched.

“Do you think you could put the glasses back on the table?” Liv nodded towards the floating objects and Aaron complied immediately. “I think it’s time we left,” Liv continued. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything here tonight.”

Aaron nodded stiffly and rose from his seat just as Ellis reappeared.

“We’re leaving,” Liv told him immediately.

Ellis’s eyes landed on the table covered in glass and he looked as though he was about to ask what had happened but Liv stopped him with a sharp shake of her head and a telepathic message to ‘leave it’.

While Liv had been preoccupied with Ellis for a few seconds, Aaron had slipped away from the table and was stalking over to the bar. When he arrived beside Robert, he cut through the conversation that was taking place and announced, “We’re going.”

Robert looked at him in surprise for a moment. He knew that Aaron’s social skills sometimes left a little to be desired, but this seemed rude even for him.

“I’m just in the middle of a conversation here,” he said as he gestured towards the man standing opposite him.

“We’re going,” Aaron repeated bluntly.

Robert was taken aback by Aaron’s attitude. They hadn’t exactly spoken that much over the last few weeks but it didn’t seem like now was the time to test their already strained relationship. He didn’t understand what was wrong but sensed that he should probably say his goodbyes and leave. 

“Okay,” he said slowly. “Just give me a minute.”

Aaron’s nostrils flared and Robert was sure he saw something like anger flash in his eyes before he turned and marched back towards Liv and Ellis, who had been joined by Matty and Dawn. He didn’t stop when he reached them though; he just kept stomping past them and out of the door.

Robert turned back to the man he had been chatting with. “Sorry…about that,” he offered weakly.

The man across from him smiled knowingly. “Don’t worry about it,” he said easily, “I’d be jealous if I saw you flirting with someone else too.”

It took Robert a moment to comprehend what he’d just heard. Aaron wasn’t jealous – was he? Just a few weeks ago, he’d pushed Robert away. He didn’t want Robert - did he? He was so stunned by the prospect that he couldn’t formulate a reply.

“Here,” the man said, still with a smile on his face as he handed Robert a business card. “Take my number and give me a call sometime if you fancy making some more people jealous.” He winked and strolled away from Robert who was still trying to catch up with what he had just heard. Eventually, he tucked the card into his pocket and turned to join the others. 

When he reached them, none of them gave him any hint of what was going on so he was none the wiser. They all left the club and headed for the van. Aaron was already in the driver’s seat as he hadn’t been drinking but he didn’t look at any of them as they climbed in; he just set off in silence with his jaw still clenched tightly.

***

When they got back to the house, Aaron jumped out of the van before the others had managed to undo their seatbelts. He disappeared from the garage immediately and left the five of them wondering what was going on.

Robert had gone up to his room hoping to fall asleep and forget all about the evening’s strange events but sleep wouldn’t come. He was so confused about what was going on with Aaron. And he was annoyed if he was being honest. 

Despite the awkwardness between them since their kiss, he actually thought he was getting somewhere with Aaron. Things were far from perfect and he’d decided that they’d eventually need to talk about what had happened, but before they could do that, Aaron had gone and acted like a complete dick. 

He couldn’t believe that Aaron was motivated by jealousy: surely that wasn’t possible. What did Aaron have to be jealous about? Him talking to a man in a club? And even if Robert had been flirting, or was being flirted with, what did that have to do with Aaron? He’d made it clear that he didn’t want Robert, so what was his problem? 

Knowing that he wasn’t going to be falling asleep anytime soon, he rolled out of bed and pulled a t-shirt and shorts on. Maybe a workout would clear his head.

As soon as he reached the basement, Robert knew that he wasn’t alone. The doors of the lift slid open and the sound of rhythmic, heavy punches alerted Robert to the fact that Aaron was also down there doing a late night workout. His first thought was to abandon his plan, get back in the lift and head back upstairs. But then he decided that that wasn’t fair. If he couldn’t let it go, he didn’t see why Aaron got to thrash the punching bag until he got over whatever his problem was.

Instead of getting back in the lift, he marched towards where the punching bag was suspended from the ceiling. He always marvelled at Aaron’s physical strength and wondered how long it would be before the bag was either ripped from the ceiling or split by the force of one of Aaron’s punches, but right now he didn’t feel like standing watching in appreciation.

“What is your problem?” he asked angrily.

Aaron had his back to Robert but stopped punching the bag and turned around as soon as he heard his voice. He looked at Robert for a long time without speaking.

“I said, what’s your problem?” Robert repeated. He was staring Aaron down, his anger increasing with every moment that Aaron didn’t respond.

“I don’t have a problem,” Aaron eventually replied gruffly. He was out of breath and sweaty and for a second Robert pictured him looking just like that, moving above him, slamming into him, grunting out his name. He shook his head forcefully to remove the images; he was  not going down that route. He needed to focus on being pissed off.

“Well, it seemed like you did at the club,” he spat out. “I was just talking to that bloke and you were so bloody  rude .”

Aaron huffed out a bitter laugh and shook his head slightly. “He obviously wanted to fuck you.”

Robert blinked rapidly a few times. He had never heard Aaron speak like that before. “So what if he did?” he said once he had recovered.

“We were there to  work ,” Aaron retorted, “Not flirt and hook up with random guys.”

“I  was working,” Robert replied angrily. “I was asking him stuff about the missing people. What does it matter if he was flirting at the same time?”

“It wasn’t just him that was flirting though, was it? You were too,” Aaron threw back at him.

“ So ?” Robert replied. “I don’t see why it’s a big deal. What does it matter to you if I  was flirting with him? I don’t know what your fucking problem is.”

Aaron didn’t reply; he just stared at Robert angrily. The muscle in his jaw was twitching; his hands were balled into fists by his sides.

“I didn’t know that joining this team meant that I had to give up my social life,” Robert continued. “I didn’t realise that I wouldn’t be allowed to  speak to anyone else ever again. I might have thought twice about joining you if I’d known.”

“Maybe you should have,” Aaron suddenly spoke up. His eyes were still blazing with anger. “Maybe you shouldn’t have ever come here.”

For a moment, Robert felt the anger leave him and something much worse flood through his system. He felt hollow and sad and almost heartbroken all at the same time. He didn’t want Aaron to see that though; he didn’t want him to see that he’d hurt him.

“D’you know what, Aaron?  Fuck you ,” he spat as he turned on his heel and stomped away from him.

It was only when the lift doors had closed behind Robert that Aaron growled in frustration. He spun around and slammed his fist into the punching bag as hard as he could. There was a loud screech as the chains holding the bag ripped from the ceiling and it was thrown across the room. He watched as bits of the plaster fell into the centre of the room, then he sank down onto the floor, lying down so that he was looking up at the new hole in the ceiling. His hand actually hurt from the force of the punch he’d just thrown. He lifted his hand above his face and flexed his fingers, looking at the blood oozing from his split knuckles. 

He’d really fucked everything up tonight.

Something strange had been going on in his head for quite a while. Something had changed and was making him  feel again. It was terrifying but wonderful at the same time. He felt warm and alive and like there might be something ahead of him other than crushing despair. It had taken a while to figure out that that something was Robert. But that realisation had terrified him. He couldn’t bear the thought of caring so much about anyone else. He couldn’t bear the thought of  losing someone else.

He had hoped to just continue as though nothing had changed, but seeing Robert with that other man had filled him with a rage that he couldn’t control. It didn’t make any sense; he didn’t have any claim on Robert. He hadn’t got his head around his feelings himself, let alone told Robert any of his thoughts, so he really had no right to be so jealous. Robert thought that he was mad with  him , but in truth he was only angry with himself. And now he had well and truly messed everything up.


	6. 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Continuing writing this and hoping it might bring some relief from the current onscreen despair for some of us.

Things at the house were tense. 

It had been a few days since Aaron and Robert had had their row and things hadn’t improved.

Aaron had retreated back into himself – keeping his distance from the others as much as possible, especially Robert. As far as he was concerned, letting his emotions take control had been what had caused the problem, so he was determined to keep his feelings locked up tightly from now on. Deep down, he wanted to speak to Robert calmly and apologise to him; he wanted to try to explain what he felt and how it was completely terrifying for him but he couldn’t find the words in his own head so he certainly wasn’t going to be attempting a conversation.

Besides, Robert was probably so pissed off at him that he’d never want to speak to him again anyway. Aaron winced as he recalled what he had said to Robert. He had basically told him that things would have been better if he’d never joined the team. That wasn’t true - Aaron knew it wasn’t - but he had thrown it at Robert anyway and he knew that he had hurt him. In that moment, he’d _wanted_ to hurt him. He’d lashed out like he always did because he wanted to push Robert far away so that, in the long run, he wouldn’t end up hurting Robert, or himself, even more. 

But almost immediately after the words had fallen from his mouth, he’d regretted it. He’d wanted to turn back the clock for just a few minutes to take back what he’d said, to avoid seeing that look on Robert’s face. 

All this mess was exactly the reason why Aaron had tried to keep himself cut off from everyone after Jackson died. Caring about people, letting your emotions take over, allowing yourself to  feel were all things that weakened you. They were also all things that Robert had made Aaron do again.

***

Robert was all over the place. He swung from miserable to angry like a switch was being flicked in his brain.

The morning after his confrontation with Aaron, Robert had been sure that Dawn would come and ask him to leave. He wouldn’t have even blamed her. How were they supposed to function as a team like this? And if anyone had to go, it would obviously be him. He was the last one in: Aaron had built up relationships with the rest of the team over years of working with them - they were his friends and family - so surely Robert would have to go. They wouldn’t allow him to stay and cause so much ill-feeling. But no-one came. No-one told him to pack his bags.

It was obvious that the others knew that something had erupted between Aaron and himself, but they just looked at him sympathetically when he wearily made his way down to breakfast that morning.

Robert had been dreading running into Aaron but there was no sign of him. He had made his way down to the gym, knowing that a workout was what he needed to get rid of some pent-up aggression but also fearing he’d bump into Aaron. As he’d walked through the basement, he’d glanced at the room where they’d had their confrontation the previous night and stumbled to a halt. The punching bag was propped up in the corner, the chains hanging limply down the side. He’d stepped closer to the room and looked up to see the wrecked plaster surrounding the hole where the chains had once been attached. As he’d looked, he’d realised that Aaron had finally unleashed everything and managed to rip the bag from its restraints just as Robert had always wondered if he could. Knowing that his argument with Aaron was probably to blame had made Robert feel strange. He didn’t want to be the cause of Aaron being so angry; he didn’t want to cause trouble.

He thought they’d been getting on so well. He thought they’d been making progress and actually starting to like one another. He knew  he liked Aaron. And maybe that was part of the problem. Maybe he liked Aaron too much and had started to get too close. It had always been obvious that Aaron struggled with letting people in and maybe Robert had pushed too hard. He didn’t know what to think; he was confused and angry and hurt.

Robert’s powers had been ‘playing up’ as he privately described it. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else, but since the argument, they’d been erratic. He knew he was at his best when he could focus his mind and be calm. Liv had spent a long time teaching him ways to be more in control and in tune with his powers. As a result, he’d been able to manipulate and create any form of weather instantly and with precise control. But since the problem with Aaron, he’d lost some of his ability to stay in control which was incredibly frustrating. The problem was, the more he got annoyed with himself, the worse the problem became. With his moods fluctuating so wildly as he tried to get his head around what was going on, his powers were doing whatever they liked.

Liv found Robert in one of the training rooms, sitting cross legged on the floor underneath a dark grey storm cloud that was pouring rain down on him.

Liv took one look at his miserable face and came to sit with him. She sat just far enough away that she wasn’t sitting in the puddle with Robert.

“What’s going on, Rob?” she asked gently.

Robert shrugged. “I can’t stop it,” he replied miserably. “Thought I’d better stay in here until it ran out.”

Liv’s eyebrows lifted. “You can’t stop it? How long has this been going on for?”

“About half an hour,” Robert replied as he held his hand out to collect the rain.

“No, I mean how long have you been struggling like this for?” Liv asked.

“This has happened before,” Robert replied quietly and he sounded distant, almost like his mind was elsewhere. “When my mum died...it rained in our village for a week without stopping.” He looked lost in his own head. “I couldn’t stop it. They thought it was going to cause a flood. My dad had me sedated.”

Liv gasped in appalled shock. “That’s _awful_, Rob,” she said quietly. “That...they shouldn’t have done that to you. Not to someone who was grieving.”

“Things were different then. We were still...unknown, I suppose. People were scared of us, what we could do.” It sounded like he was trying to defend the actions of people who should have known better, who shouldn’t have treated a traumatised child like a problem. 

“Well they could’ve tried talking to you first,” Liv retorted angrily on his behalf, but then she softened immediately. “What’s caused this then?” She gestured to the cloud above Robert’s head. 

Robert turned his hand over and watched the water drip away. He didn’t reply.

“It’s been since you fell out with Aaron,” Liv said.

As soon as she mentioned Aaron’s name, a flash of lightning cracked in the air above them accompanied by a loud clap of thunder. Robert lifted his eyes to look at Liv in defeat.

Liv sighed heavily. “Look, Rob, I know that you know what Aaron’s been through in the past but what you don’t know is how much better things have been since you’ve been here.

“After Jackson died, we lost Aaron too. He just became like this shell of himself. He carried on because he had to, but he wasn’t the same Aaron anymore. I know that he must have said something hurtful to you, I could feel the pain coming off you in waves the morning after, and trust me we’ve all been there. Sometimes when he feels like it’s all getting too much for him, someone’s getting too close, he pushes them away to make it easier. He’s terrified of losing people that he cares for so it’s easier to not let them get too close in the first place. I know that’s pretty fucked up but it seems to be how he protects himself.

“I know he’s pushed you away but you have to know that you’ve made things so much better for him. For all of us actually. I knew he’d struggle to accept you at first but, after a while, I could see that he was warming to you. I could see that he was opening up again and actually becoming more like the Aaron we had before. I know he still has his moments, sometimes he shuts down, but they have been happening less and less since he’s been spending time with you. You’re making him feel again, Robert, and that’s probably scaring the shit out of him.”

Robert was looking at her with wide eyes as he tried to absorb everything that she had said.

“I don’t want you to think that I’m making excuses for him and letting him off for being a arse – I’m not. I just want you to understand why he’s like he is. I’m not saying you should just forget what’s happened but maybe try to talk to him. Being like this is obviously making you both miserable.”

Robert nodded slowly and then looked up. The rain had stopped and the cloud was evaporating before his eyes.

Liv stood up and offered her hand to Robert to pull him up too. When they were both standing, Liv smiled brightly up at him and patted Robert’s arm. “You’re good for each other,” she said knowingly. “Stay here, I’ll grab you a towel.”

***

“There’s a hole in the ceiling in the basement,” Liv announced as she walked straight into Aaron’s bedroom without even knocking.

He jolted up from his position where he’d been lying on his bed staring into space. He wondered whether she’d quickly checked his mind to make sure he wasn’t doing anything she shouldn’t be walking in on, and seeing as it wasn’t the first time she’d done this kind of thing since they’d been living in the house together, he supposed she had a system for such intrusions. 

Liv stood at the end of his bed and stared at him with her arms folded across her chest. 

“I guess that would be something to do with you,” she stated bluntly. 

“Leave it, Liv,” he grunted as he pushed himself upright to sit on the edge of his bed. 

“Don’t you think you’d better fix it?”

Looking up at her, he wondered if she meant the damage he’d caused to the ceiling or to his developing relationship with Robert. 

He just sighed heavily in response.

“So, what did he do to piss you off?” she asked. 

Narrowing his eyes, Aaron tried to give her a warning look. “I said, leave it.”

Liv hummed lowly. “Can’t do that. Robert’s downstairs with practically a permanent rain cloud following him around and you’re up here locking yourself away again.”

Aaron rolled his eyes and shook his head in frustration. He didn’t want to have this conversation. 

“I’d just started to get you back and now I’m losing you again,” Liv said much more quietly. 

Glancing up at her, Aaron suddenly felt awful. Sometimes he forgot that his mood seemed to impact on other people too. They all lived and worked closely together: they were bound to have their ups and downs, but Aaron’s mood had been down far more often than it had been up over the last few years and he knew it affected them all. He hated that he was causing his friends and family to suffer: it was just another thing to feel guilty about. 

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean for all of you to get caught up in it.”

Liv sighed heavily. “I don’t want you to be sorry...at least not to me. But whatever’s happened between you, I really think you should try to fix it.”

Shaking his head slightly, Aaron released his own sigh. “It’s not that simple.”

“It should be,” Liv argued. “But I know you. And I know that you’re probably beating yourself up about what’s happened and thinking you’re an awful person or something. And you’re not. Robert doesn’t think you are either.”

At that, Aaron looked at her quickly. Had she spoken to Robert? Had he told her what had happened? Had he told her how he felt about it all? He was too afraid to ask: maybe he wouldn’t like the answer. 

“He’s good for you,” Liv continued as she watched his face carefully. “You’ve been...happier since you started spending time with him. And I don’t know what’s happened between you - not really - but I can guess.”

Aaron looked down at his knees, unable to meet her eyes. 

“And I can also guess what’s probably going through your head about it all. I don’t need to be telepathic to know that you like him and somewhere along the way you started to feel guilty about that, like it meant you were moving on and forgetting Jackson or something.”

Aaron could feel hot tears building in his eyes. He was so frustrated and scared and confused. He still wouldn’t look at her. 

“It’s been over two years since Jackson died and you’ve mourned for him the whole time. You cut yourself off from everything and there were times when it seemed like you were barely hanging on. Losing him was terrible and shocking and no-one ever said there was a right way to grieve or a time frame on how long it should take, but recently, it’s felt like you were finally getting there, like you were finally ready to start living again. It felt like you’d come back to us. And that’s been down to Robert. He’s made you feel alive again.”

Slowly, Aaron looked up at her and blinked. A tear had dribbled down his cheek at her words. She was right: he knew that. But it didn’t change the fact that he still felt guilty about it. It didn’t change the fact that he was scared to ever feel that way about someone ever again. 

“You don’t have to spend the rest of your life alone because you lost someone once.”

Aaron felt the words deep in his heart. He knew she was right. He knew he didn’t need to be alone. He knew he didn’t need to feel bad about liking someone else or moving on. He’d loved Jackson - so much. But being with someone else, maybe even loving someone else eventually, didn’t change that; it didn’t make him a bad person. And he knew that if Jackson had had the chance, he would’ve told Aaron that himself. 

“When did you get so wise?” he asked Liv as he scrubbed his sleeve across his face. 

Liv laughed lightly and shrugged. “Well, you got the brawn so I guess I got the brain.”

Aaron laughed suddenly and wrapped his arm around her shoulders squeezing her.

“Cheeky git,” he said as he pulled her closer and pressed a kiss against the side of her head. 

“Get off!” she grumbled, but she made no real effort to release herself. 

“Thanks,” he said quietly, once he’d let her go and she’d settled back next to him. “I know it’s not been easy. You’ve stuck with me and, well...thank you.”

She smiled softly at him and her cheeks were a little red. “Just remember I’m the smart one next time you think you know best.”

He smiled at her again. Maybe she really was right. Maybe he needed to give himself, and Robert, a chance to be happy again.

***

“What happened to the bag?” Robert asked.

Aaron spun around so quickly that he nearly dropped the drill that was in his hand. He was repairing the mess he’d made when he’d sent the punching bag flying across the room and wasn’t expecting Robert to walk up behind him.

“I…um…I hit it too hard,” he said eventually. He looked down at the drill in his hand and fiddled with it a little, clearly to avoid eye contact. 

Robert nodded and hummed in understanding. “Oh well, it’s good to get things fixed up sooner rather than later,” he said.

Aaron looked strangely uncomfortable when his eyes lifted to Robert’s again and Robert thought that maybe now was the wrong time to try to smooth things over between them. The last time they’d been in this room, they’d yelled at one another and Aaron had been so angry he’d managed to put a hole in the ceiling. Now he was standing there with a drill in his hand and Robert wasn’t sure he wanted to know what Aaron would do if he got mad. He turned to walk away.

“Robert, wait,” Aaron called.

He turned around slowly, feeling anxious, but also desperate to clear the air between them.

“I…” Aaron started but seemed to lose what he wanted to say. He cleared his throat. “I want to apologise for the other night. I...I was a dick and behaved really badly. I, um, I had no right to treat you like that. I was out of order.”

Robert was a little shocked. He hadn’t been expecting a full apology. “Why did you then?” he asked.

Aaron’s eyes widened and he looked down to fiddle with the drill again. 

Robert took a step closer to him. He looked so vulnerable, so unsure of himself, and Robert just wanted to pull him into a hug and tell him they’d be alright. He couldn’t: he knew that. Aaron wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t accept it. But it didn’t stop Robert wanting to. 

“I know that you think it’s better to keep everyone at arm’s length,” he said gently, before he could allow himself to do something daft. “But I think it might be good for you to let someone in.”

Aaron looked up at him quickly and their eyes met. There was something in Aaron’s eyes that gave Robert hope. 

“You don’t have to explain everything to me, I just…I don’t want us to be angry with each other anymore,” Robert continued. “I’ve...I’ve missed spending time with you,” he added. “And maybe, one day, you’ll feel like you can…let  me in.”

Aaron swallowed thickly but held the eye contact with Robert. “Maybe,” he said with a slight nod, “One day.”

Both of them smiled slightly at the other. Things weren’t perfect and there were still wounds that needed to be healed for both of them but at least they had taken a step in the right direction again.

***

Thursday evening found the team called to a horrendous accident on the motorway. Several vehicles had been involved and many people were injured. With it being such a huge operation with so much information being relayed rapidly at the same time, both Dawn and Liv had stayed at the house to help co-ordinate their rescue efforts while Aaron, Matty, Robert and Ellis had all attended the scene.

After a few hours of pulling victims from their vehicles, helping to extinguish fires and moving crumpled cars out of the way, the team were exhausted and ready to head for home. They had worked tirelessly since arriving but felt satisfied with their efforts; they had saved a lot of lives and got people to safety a lot more quickly than the emergency services could have managed on their own.

At some point during the chaos, the girls had gone quiet on the end of their communications but none of them had had the time to wonder why. Now that they were ready to return to the base, Aaron attempted to alert them.

“Dawn, we’re heading back,” he said as he held his hand against his ear-piece.

There was nothing but silence in response.

“Dawn? You there?” he tried again. “Liv? Do you copy?”

Again there was no response.

Aaron dropped his hand and looked at the others in confusion. 

“Comms must have gone down,” he said as he shrugged his shoulders. “We’ll head home and see what’s going on.”

They all agreed and wearily headed back to the car. 

As soon as they arrived at the house, something seemed wrong. Everywhere was too quiet. Usually, Dawn was there to greet them if they went out on a mission and Liv was always there if she hadn’t joined them. Even if the communication systems had gone down while they were out and they were working to repair them, there should have been some noise, some sign of life, but there was nothing. The girls would have still heard the car arriving and surely would have come to meet them, especially after such a difficult and draining call out. 

The four of them were immediately on their guard. They cautiously but quickly made their way through the basement towards the bank of computers that Dawn stationed herself at for missions and instantly realised that something bad had happened. 

Dawn’s chair was over-turned, her headset was lying on the floor (it looked like it had been crushed under someone’s foot) and one of the computer screens from the edge of the desk was smashed on the ground. There was no sign of either of them and the sense of wrongness was palpable. Something awful had happened. 

“Dawn?” Aaron called out in panic. “Liv? Are you here?”

“We need to split up,” Ellis commanded. “We need to search the house to try to find them, but if someone was here, they might still be around so Matty and Robert you go together. Aaron, you’re with me. Watch your backs.”

They split into pairs and set off quickly: Ellis and Aaron took the upstairs, while Matty and Robert searched the ground floor and the basement.

They found Dawn in the hallway. She was unconscious on the floor, a large bruise already forming on her face. 

“Aaron?” Matty called through his comms. “We’ve got Dawn. Downstairs near the front door. She’s out cold.”

“We’re still searching,” Aaron replied. “We’ll meet you down there as soon as we’re done.” The tension was obvious in his voice, even over the radio. His concern for Dawn and his fear that Liv was also hurt somewhere was bleeding into his tone as he spoke. 

Robert was kneeling beside Dawn, trying to rouse her as he listened to Aaron’s words. 

“Dawn,” he said to her unresponsive form. “Come on, Dawn. Wake up.” His own heart was pounding in his chest as he tried to wake her. His hand shook as he reached out to stroke her hair: anger that someone had done this to his friend and fear about what else had gone on while they’d been away was rushing through him. He knew he needed to stay calm. If not, he might end up starting a thunder storm in the hallway.

A soft groan fell from Dawn’s lips and Robert looked up and met Matty’s concerned eyes with a hopeful expression. 

“That’s it,” he encouraged. “Come on, Dawn. We’re here now.”

“Rob?” she asked hoarsely as she blinked up at him. “What? What happened?”

He smiled gently at her. “Kind of hoping you’d be able to tell us.”

Dawn blinked slowly again. She was still and silent for a long moment and then her eyes widened and she struggled to sit up. 

“Liv!” she gasped. She almost collapsed back to the floor when her arms struggled to hold her up, but Matty grabbed her just in time. 

Suddenly, Aaron and Ellis came running down the stairs. Aaron’s face was a picture of fear and panic as he looked at Robert like he might have the answers to the desperate questions rushing through his head.

“No sign of Liv anywhere,” Ellis reported. “What the hell is going on?”

“He took her,” Dawn groaned from her position still slumped on the floor. 

They all looked at her immediately. She winced as she put her hand to her head.

Aaron fell to his knees beside her and squeezed her other hand. 

“What happened, Dawn? Tell me everything.”

Dawn swallowed thickly and then it seemed like she pulled herself up a little straighter. 

“We were so focused on getting information to you in the field. It was crazy - so much happening all at once. That’s the only way he can have got inside without us realising. We were at the communication station and Liv...she went tense all of a sudden. The next thing I knew, there was this man standing behind her - he had his hand around her mouth and she’d gone limp in his arms. I jumped up. I tried to reach out with my mind to stop him but he blocked me so easily. He started dragging Liv away so I just tried to grab him. I didn’t know what else to do. He hit me and I fell...he managed to get away. By the time, I’d picked myself up, they were gone up the stairs. I went after them. I caught them here. I tried to stop him again but, when I grabbed him, I felt...I felt awful, like I didn’t have any strength left in my body. The last thing I remember is feeling so weak and then nothing.”

Suddenly, her eyes welled with tears.

“I’m so sorry, Aaron. I lost her. I couldn’t stop him...I’m so sorry.”

Robert glanced up at Aaron. He looked utterly distraught, but at the same time he looked like he was managing to hold himself together without freaking out completely. Robert was glad: he didn’t think it would help any of them, especially Dawn, in that moment if Aaron lost control. 

He watched as Aaron gently squeezed her hand in his own. “It’s not your fault, Dawn,” he said. “We’ll help her. But you need to tell us everything you remember so we can find her. Any tiny detail might help.”

His eyes lifted and met Robert’s for a brief moment and Robert nodded once at Aaron to reassure him that they were in this together and that they would find her. 

When they had listened to Dawn’s story again, they split up and scoured the house for any tiny clue to help with locating Liv. It hadn’t yielded much new information. The intruder had got in without doing any damage and hadn’t left any sign of his identity. He hadn’t been caught on their security cameras. The only thing they had to go on was Dawn’s description of him and the fact that he must be a mutant with some form of power absorption mutation based on the way both she and Liv had reacted to his touch.

It wasn’t much, but it was all they had. And it had to be enough.

***

Liv wondered how much she had had to drink the night before. It must have been a hell of a lot for her to be waking up feeling quite so rough. To be honest, she couldn’t even remember being out drinking at all so she must have been totally smashed. Aaron wouldn’t be impressed. She hadn’t even managed to force her eyes open yet, knowing that the pounding in her head would only intensify as soon as she tried.

She wondered why her bed felt so hard and cold and she was immediately worried that maybe she had fallen asleep somewhere that wasn’t her own room. Maybe she was lying on the stone floor in the basement or on the tiles in the kitchen but surely the others would have dragged her up to her bed. She needed to find out, so cautiously she forced her eyelids to move.

She was not in the basement or the kitchen, she wasn’t in her room: in fact she wasn’t even in her own  house . 

She didn’t know where she was. 

But that was only part of what was so frightening. The other part was the set of metal bars that were right in front of her face.

Liv pushed herself up into a sitting position immediately and stared at the bars in horror. Quickly, she looked all around and found that there were bars surrounding her on three sides and a stone wall behind her. The space was just large enough for her to lie down and would be tall enough for her to stand up, but that was it. She was in a cage.

She moved forward and grabbed hold of the bars with both fists. She tried to shake them but knew it was pointless – they were solid and unyielding. Peering out of her prison, she could see other cells just like hers all around the edge of a large room. It might have been some sort of warehouse. As she continued to look, she could make out shapes inside some of the cells. Other people were trapped just like her: some were lying down, their wrists bound in front of them, others were curled in on themselves in the far corner of their cell. 

Liv was about to call out to them to try to find out what the hell was going on, when a loud screeching sound signalled a rusted door was being opened at the opposite end of the room.

A young man with brown hair - who could only have been a few years older than her - walked casually into the room, scanning the cages as he went. His eyes landed on Liv, who was still gripping the bars of her cell, and his face lit up.

“You’re awake!” he announced happily. “I’m so glad that we finally get to have a proper introduction.”

Liv watched him approach warily. 

“What’s going on?” she asked as the man squatted down in front of her. “Where am I?”

The man scrunched up his face slightly. “Those are the wrong questions I’m afraid,” he said with a shake of his head. “You should have asked: ‘Who are you?’ and ‘Why am I here?’.” He put on a silly, mocking voice as he asked the questions. “I’m Lachlan White and you are here because I chose you.”

“Chose me for what?” Liv asked. 

She already disliked the man before her; just being in his presence made her skin crawl.

“Ah, an excellent question this time,” Lachlan said as he stood up straight and started pacing in front of Liv. “I chose you because you’re just what I was looking for. I’ve been searching for someone like you for ever and when I found you, I just knew that I had to have you.”

Liv had stood up too within the confines of her cell and was tracking Lachlan’s movements nervously. The man before her was clearly unstable. 

“But what for?” she asked again.

Suddenly, Lachlan closed the gap between them and was right in front of Liv. He reached his hand up and ran his index finger across the knuckles of Liv’s right hand where it was still clamped around the bars of his cage.

Liv immediately felt dizzy and dropped to her knees. She felt like all the strength had been drawn from her and she couldn’t support her own weight any more. She suddenly realised she’d felt like that before: when she’d been in the basement with Dawn and she’d suddenly felt someone’s presence before she’d felt completely and utterly drained. And then everything had gone black. 

As she gasped on her hands and knees, trying to catch her breath and clear the black spots that were swimming across her vision, she came to a terrifying realisation. This man was responsible for the missing mutants: he was responsible for the murders. For some reason that she didn’t yet know, he was kidnapping people and stealing their powers.

When Liv managed to push herself back into a sitting position, she glared at Lachlan in disgust - not because of what his mutation was, but because of how he was using it. 

“You’re a power absorber,” she managed to say. 

Lachlan smiled and tilted his head to the side condescendingly. “Actions speak louder than words I suppose.”

“You’ve been kidnapping mutants and taking their powers for months. You’ve been killing people…” Liv couldn’t comprehend why someone would do something so despicable. “ Why? ”

Lachlan’s smile fell and his expression darkened as he stared at Liv. 

“Now  that is the key question. Can you imagine how it feels to have this ‘ gift’ ?” he spat the word like it was poison. “Can you imagine how it feels to know that if you ever touch another person you will suck the life right out of them? Can you imagine how it feels to be shunned by your own family for something that you can’t even control?” Lachlan’s voice was rising; his anger obvious as he began pacing again.

“But you don’t have to do  this ,” Liv said desperately. “You don’t have to use it to hurt other people. Someone out there could help you…”

“No!” Lachlan snapped as he spun around to face Liv. “I have spent so long on my own wondering why I’m like this. I was always afraid to be near anyone else because I might hurt them, but do you know what? That’s not fair. Why should  I be punished? Why should  I be alone? I realised that I didn’t need to be - I could have lots of people near me.” He waved his arms around the room before he focused intently on Liv again. “And do you know what else I realised? I could be the most powerful mutant in the world if I actually used my powers. If I absorbed the powers of other mutants, I could use them. I can be all powerful because I can possess every single mutation all at the same time.”

His words made Liv feel ill all over again. Lachlan obviously didn’t care about anyone else: all he wanted was power. And on top of that, Liv had realised that she wasn’t just there as a prisoner; she was there as a power source.

“So you see, I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” Lachlan said almost sweetly. The bitterness was suddenly gone from his tone again. “You are very powerful. Your telepathy is marvellous, but what I really want is your psychic navigation. For so long I’ve had to get close to people to figure out their abilities – I can sense what a person can do, but only by being in close proximity. For example, like how I found  you at the nightclub the other night. I was using one of my ‘friend’s’ powers to mask my thoughts so I’m not surprised that you didn’t know I was right beside you at one point. I knew straight away that you were just what I wanted. But now, with your help, I can search for mutants from miles away, which makes things so much easier.”

“I’ll never help you,” Liv retorted furiously. “You’re sick: what you’re doing is sick.”

“Well you won’t exactly have much choice in the matter,” Lachlan said simply.

“How do you expect to keep me locked in here? I can control your mind in case you’d forgotten,” Liv told him defiantly.

Lachlan actually laughed at that. “Oh, do try,” he said brightly. “But I gave you a little jab while you were unconscious which will prevent you from using your powers. You see, they’re not your powers anymore – they’re mine.”

Liv desperately tried to reach out with her mind but nothing came to her. She felt completely hollow and the feeling terrified her more than anything else. 

“No!” she shouted. “You fucking monster!” 

She was banging against the bars in a rage as the terrible reality of her situation began to sink in. She was trapped at the mercy of a sociopath who was going to steal her powers in order to trap other innocent victims.

Lachlan was tutting and shaking his head sadly. 

“Save your energy,” he said. “I don’t want you getting too tired out straight away.”

“Why? Because I’m no use to you then?” Liv asked angrily. Tears of rage and frustration were welling in her eyes. 

“Precisely,” Lachlan answered like it was obvious. “Unfortunately, some of my other friends seemed to… run out of power. I don’t really know what happened; I always give them chance to recharge their batteries but I guess some of them just can’t keep up.” 

He spoke so breezily that it was like he really believed that it was just a disappointment that his prisoners had died and he really didn’t realise that people could only survive for so long having the life literally drained from them. He spoke about them almost as though they were objects, powered up and ready for use whenever he wanted. It was obvious that he had no qualms about ‘throwing them away’ when they had stopped being useful.

“How many?” Liv asked dejectedly. She already knew about two mutants that had been found in an emaciated state and now she fully understood how they had got into that condition. But she needed to know how many poor people had suffered the same fate at the hands of this delusional creep.

Lachlan shrugged his shoulders and frowned. “Hmm, four if I remember rightly,” he said easily.

Liv hung her head and tried to calm herself down. She needed to keep her head if she was ever going to get out of this alive. Suddenly she felt the same dizziness and weakness sweep through her body and she slumped to her knees again.

Lachlan was stroking his hand up and down her forearm and smiling giddily to himself as he watched Liv struggle to keep her eyes open. 

As Liv finally gave in to the fight and slipped into unconsciousness, she heard Lachlan happily announcing, “We’re going to get on really well.”

***

It had been three days since Liv had gone missing. Three days where the rest of the team had searched and searched and found nothing. There had been no clues as to what had happened to her other than the information that Dawn had been able to provide. The security cameras covering the perimeter of the house had caught nothing, which was a mystery in itself, but it meant that whoever had attacked them had wandered in completely undetected.

None of them had slept much in the last three days. They returned to the house to eat in order to keep their energy up and catch a few hours sleep before they went back out to search. They had reported Liv’s disappearance to the police but didn’t hold out much hope of that actually helping. Liv’s name was just going to be added to a long list of missing mutants.

Using Dawn’s research into the disappearances and murders, they had created a search area to start off with. Once they had factored in the positions that the bodies had been found, the last places that the mutants had been seen and the location of the nightclub that Dawn was so sure was relevant, they had got an area covering a few square miles to investigate. It was slow progress as the area was full of abandoned buildings, storage units and garages, but they searched each one meticulously.

By the end of the third day of searching, with no sign of Liv, the strain was beginning to show on all of them. They were all exhausted but refused to give up. Robert could see that Aaron was pulling away from them again; he was slipping back into his shut down state, almost as though he was preparing for the worst.

As they walked down yet another alleyway, searching for clues, Ellis suddenly stopped at the front of the group. 

“Can you hear that?” he asked as he spun around to face the rest of them.

“Hear what?” Matty asked. He stepped closer to Ellis, knowing that the other man’s hearing was much more acute than his so maybe he needed to be in the same spot to hear it. He couldn’t hear anything.

“I can hear a voice,” Ellis said as he turned slowly on the spot looking all around him as he tried to locate the sound.

“It’s probably because you’re so tired,” Matty said gently as he patted his shoulder. “We’re all knackered – your mind’s playing tricks on you.”

Ellis looked at Matty sadly and nodded once. Matty wrapped his arm around him and guided him away from the spot.

Robert cast a glance at Aaron but Aaron was staring resolutely ahead. He moved off to follow the others leaving Robert trailing behind.

As they continued along the alleyway, Robert heard the voice. He came to an abrupt halt just as Ellis had done.

“Help us…” The voice was so weak that Robert strained to hear it but then he realised that he wasn’t hearing it with his ears at all; he was hearing it inside his head.

“Wait!” he called out to the others. “I can hear it too!”

The three men ahead of him turned around at his shout and looked at him questioningly before running back to him. They all stood there listening but after a moment they started looking at him sceptically.

“I can’t hear anything now. I think Matty’s right - it was my mind playing tricks on me,” Ellis said doubtfully.

“You’re not listening properly,” Robert insisted.

“I have the best hearing out of all of us,” Ellis told him. “If there was something there, I’d hear it.” He moved to start walking away.

“No,” Robert protested. “Just keep listening in your head.”

“We haven’t got time for this, Robert,” Aaron snapped sternly and he too turned to continue along the alleyway.

But Robert wouldn’t accept that. Immediately, he lunged forward and grabbed Aaron’s arm and spun him back around to face him. Aaron looked furious, like he might actually punch Robert for wasting his time and messing about. Quickly, Robert placed his hands over Aaron’s ears blocking out the sounds of the city.

After a long moment of Aaron glaring at him, his eyes widened.

“I can hear it,” he said in shock. Robert nodded enthusiastically at him. “It’s Liv!” he gasped out.

Matty and Ellis were standing with their hands over their own ears next to them now. Anyone looking into the alley would have wondered what on Earth was going on, but the four men were so focused that they didn’t care what they looked like.

“Warehouse? Is that what she said?” Matty asked eventually.

“Yeah, I think so,” Ellis agreed.

Robert lowered his hands from Aaron’s ears and took a step backwards. He felt a little awkward all of a sudden and he focused his attention on what Matty and Ellis were saying.

“She sounds exhausted, like it’s taking all of her energy to project those few words,” Matty said sombrely.

Aaron had been staring down the alleywaylike he was in a trance. He jolted at Matty’s words. 

“Well, at least she’s able to tell us that much,” he said. “And now we know where to start looking.”

***

Liv’s eyes fluttered open slowly. Even that simple action seemed to take so much effort. Lachlan had returned every day and drawn power from Liv, leaving her exhausted.

In the brief moments when she woke up, she tried to use her powers to send a distress signal to anyone that might be listening. She had realised that the medication that Lachlan was injecting her with would begin to wear off between doses and she was using that tiny window of time to project a few words over and over again – that was all she could manage. Then before long, Lachlan would return and either inject her again or touch her skin and steal more of her powers. He was hardly leaving Liv enough time to regain any of her strength between his attacks and Liv knew that she wouldn’t last long if he carried on at this rate. Unfortunately, Lachlan was obviously so pleased with his new ‘toy’ that he wasn’t taking that into consideration. He was completely obsessed with locating more mutants for him to kidnap: he didn’t even seem to realise what he was doing to Liv. 

All Liv could do was hope that someone would hear her before it was too late.

***

It was a weary but more hopeful group that returned to the house that night. Hearing Liv’s voice had reassured them that she was still out there and that she still needed them to keep searching. They were planning to have some food to boost their energy, sleep for a few hours and then head straight back out at first light to begin searching warehouses within the area that they had marked. If Liv wasn’t in any of them, they would extend the search area.

Robert found himself in the basement after he had eaten. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He had wandered past Liv’s room upstairs and cast it a sad look before making his way down into the basement and into one of the training rooms. He sat down in the middle of the room and closed his eyes for a few moments. The last few days had been awful: the fear of what had happened to Liv was weighing heavily on all of them. He’d grown so fond of her since he’d been living with the team. He viewed her almost like she was his own little sister and the thought of losing her was almost too painful to bear. He could only imagine how hard this was for Aaron. 

The floor was covered in a spongy mat, perfect for when they were working on close-combat activities and Robert wondered whether he should just lie there and try to get some sleep, but his thoughts were interrupted by someone clearing their throat in the doorway. He looked up and saw Aaron standing there.

“You did really well today,” Aaron said as he walked across the room towards Robert.

Robert shook his head slightly. “Ellis heard it first. I probably wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t for him pointing it out.”

“Maybe, but you were the one that made us stop and listen. If you hadn’t been so insistent, we would have walked away.”

“You mean I was bossy,” Robert smiled.

“Obviously bossy worked out alright,” Aaron smiled back.

Aaron sat down beside Robert and they fell into silence.

“We’ll find her, you know,” Robert said eventually. “We’re going to bring her home.”

Aaron nodded but didn’t speak.

“Aaron...talk to me,” Robert said as he turned to look at him. “What are you thinking?”

Aaron returned Robert’s gaze and swallowed thickly. 

“I…I’m scared,” he admitted. “I’m scared that I won’t be able to save her. I’m scared that I’ll lose her too. She’s my little sister…I don’t think I can handle it if…” he trailed off and looked down at where Robert’s hand was now covering his on the mat.

“You aren’t doing this alone, Aaron,” Robert told him forcefully. “We are all going to save her. We’re a team. It’s alright to be scared of losing her because that means that you care. But you aren’t going to lose her…none of us are, because we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen. Whatever it takes, we’ll find her.” 

Aaron nodded and again they fell into silence.

“I’m glad you’re here, Robert,” Aaron said after a long time of neither of them speaking.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Robert replied as he squeezed Aaron’s hand. He smiled as Aaron turned his hand around under Robert’s so that they could tangle their fingers together.

Aaron looked up at him and smiled a tiny smile. Robert returned it, squeezing Aaron’s hand again. 

They stayed like that for a long moment and then Aaron leaned closer. He paused for a second, his eyes tracing over Robert’s face, before he moved closer and pressed a soft kiss against his lips.

Robert felt like he was holding his breath. He didn’t want this to be a mistake because Aaron was freaking out about Liv’s disappearance and he didn’t want to take advantage of the situation. At the same time, he really didn’t want Aaron to suddenly snap out of his reverie after this kiss and push him away again.

The kiss was brief and chaste but when Aaron pulled back, he smiled at Robert again. Then he leaned to the side and rested his head against Robert’s shoulder. 

Sighing in relief, Robert wrapped an arm around Aaron’s shoulders, glad that he was willing to accept the support that Robert was offering. In that moment, he silently promised Aaron that they’d find Liv and get her home safely. They’d do it together. 


	7. 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the encouragement and feedback on this story! It’s really kept me going.   
A slightly shorter chapter here and then probably only two left after this.

After several empty warehouses with no sign of Liv, it would have been easy to start doubting that they were on the right track, but the team were determined to bring her home.

They’d gone back out at first light the following morning. With Liv’s desperate, weak cries still fresh in their memories, they had a renewed drive to find her. 

Aaron and Robert had stayed down in the training room for a long time after their talk and only gone up to their rooms when Aaron had yawned loudly and Robert had glanced down at him and realised just how exhausted he looked. Robert would have quite happily stayed with Aaron downstairs all night, but he knew that neither of them would be at their best if they didn’t get some decent rest. And finding Liv was far too important to attempt to do without being on top form. 

As they approached the next warehouse, they noticed something that seemed different to all of the others that they had investigated. There were fresh tyre tracks leading down the side of this one, which on closer inspection led to a black car. If the warehouses were indeed abandoned, who would be parking their car outside one of them?

Adrenaline coursed through all of them – this was potentially it. They might find Liv inside, but they also had to be prepared for a fight. They didn’t know what had happened to her or who had taken her, but if someone was willing to kidnap Liv, then they probably weren’t going to be too happy to see her being rescued.

Aaron took the lead, forcing the chained up, rusty door open with his mind, and they all stepped into the large space inside the warehouse.

At first inspection, it seemed deathly quiet inside; there seemed to be no sign of life. But regardless of that fact, they immediately knew that they had found what they were looking for. This was no empty unit with only mice and spiders occupying it. All around the edge of the dimly lit space, there were what looked like very small prison cells and, when they looked closer, they realised that there were people inside many of them. But the people trapped inside weren’t moving; they hadn’t started begging for help as soon as the team had entered. They were all frighteningly still.

Aaron, Robert, Matty and Ellis all rushed forwards, searching for Liv, quietly calling her name as they went. 

They were all horrified by the state of the captives inside the cages. Some were in a worse condition than others, practically wasted away to nothing. Many of them were lying on the floor of their cells, seemingly unconscious. Some were curled in on themselves, as far away from the bars of their cells as they could get. But all of them seemed to be unresponsive to the group of men that was quickly moving around the room, peering into their cells.

Furiously, Aaron had been ripping the doors from the cages as he went, either with his mind or his bare hands, in order to release all of the mutants as soon as possible. He was disgusted by what they had found and the thought that Liv might be in this condition filled him with rage and horror.

Stumbling to a halt, he fell to his knees when he finally saw an untidy looking mop of recognisable dark blonde hair.

“Liv?” he called out softly but desperately. 

When he received no response from his sister, he grabbed the bars of the cell and ripped the door away from its hinges. He scrambled closer to Liv in the tiny space and scooped her up to hold her against his chest.

The noise and the movement seemed to stir Liv, who blinked at him dazedly. Aaron reached out to gently stroke her face in reassurance, but Liv flinched away from the touch.

The others had all come running as soon as they had realised that Aaron had located Liv, and they were standing closely watching on in concern.

“Aaron?” Liv asked hoarsely after she had finally managed to focus on her brother. “Are you really here?”

Aaron let out a wet sounding little laugh as he squeezed her against him. 

“Of course I’m here. We all are. You didn’t think we’d forget about you, did you? We’ve come to take you home.”

“Normally, I like to choose who my guests are,” a voice behind them said coldly. “But I’m sure I’ve got space for all of you now you’re here.”

Matty, Robert and Ellis had whipped around at the sound and Aaron had turned his head to face the man standing at the other end of the warehouse.

“Who are you and what the hell have you done to all of these people?” Ellis asked angrily. They had all adopted a defensive stance, blocking Liv from the man opposite them.

Aaron looked back at Liv who was struggling weakly in his arms. “Aaron,” she gasped, “Lachlan...he’s…he’s a power…absorber…he’ll…take them.”

Everything fell into place in Aaron’s head as Liv confirmed his fears: the missing mutants, the emaciated bodies, the prisoners in the cages. This was all some sick arrangement where this disgusting man before them stole the powers of other mutants. And that must have made the group of mutants trapped in the warehouse his collection. The thought made Aaron shudder involuntarily. It was a terrible, sickening violation to have treated these poor people like that. 

“It’ll be okay, Liv,” Aaron said gently. “We’ll stop him. We’re going to take you home and help everyone he’s hurt.” 

He laid Liv back on the floor carefully, despite the fact that he hated letting her go and she shuddered as soon as his warmth was taken from her, and then he crawled out of the cage and stood up to join his teammates.

Across the room, Lachlan was being joined by four other mutants walking towards him at a steady, controlled pace. As they stood beside him, they wore blank expressions as they turned to stare across at the group of men opposite them.

“Your teammate has a remarkable gift,” Lachlan told them cheerfully. “Her ability to control the minds of other people is quite thrilling.” 

He looked at the mutants that had gathered beside him and then back at the team. With a nod of his head, his four puppets began advancing on them, each of them with a determined look on their otherwise blank faces. Their eyes looked almost glazed over, but they obviously had their orders courtesy of Lachlan. 

“They’re not in control of their own minds,” Matty said. “We can’t hurt them: they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re victims just like Liv.”

“Well, that puts us at a serious disadvantage then,” Robert huffed out, “Seeing as they look pretty keen on hurting us.”

The four mutants that were being controlled were in various states of health. They looked to be reasonably healthy in comparison to some of the others that they had seen locked in the cages, but they certainly weren’t at their full strength and they’d clearly been locked up for some time judging by the state of their clothes and general lack of cleanliness. Regardless of that, they seemed determined to attack and the order to harm the team was obviously all they cared about.

The female mutant suddenly launched herself at Ellis and he immediately leapt out of her way. She landed gracefully and spun around to give chase; Ellis knew straight away that she had some sort of feline mutation like him from her actions.

One of the men started hurling missiles at the others, causing them to scatter out of his way, but none of them could see where he was producing them from. He seemed to be creating them out of thin air, but then Matty realised that he was pulling tiny metal balls out of his pocket, charging them up in his hand and launching them at high speed. They were as effective as bullets as they ripped through the air. Thankfully, he hadn’t managed to hit any of them because the metal pieces were lodging themselves in the walls, shattering the windows of the warehouse and pinging off metal as they flew from the man’s hands. 

Another man moved towards Aaron. It was more than evident that he had incredible strength based on his physical build alone. He was bigger than Aaron in height and stature, his muscles were bulging beneath his clothes, and he was practically built like a bear. He took a swing at Aaron, which he managed to block, but the power behind it sent him staggering backwards. Reacting quickly and regaining his balance, Aaron knew he couldn’t afford to let this man land another punch or get hold of him. He adopted a fighting stance and prepared for a battle. 

The final mutant was moving incredibly quickly; he wasn’t teleporting but zipping around the space so quickly that it was almost impossible to keep track of him. His speed seemed to be part of his whole body because when he threw a punch, his fist seemed to move almost invisibly before it connected. He’d already managed to wind Robert with a blow to the stomach and had punched Matty across the face so his lip was bleeding. The main problem was they couldn’t keep up with where he was moving to next, so before they knew what had happened, he would appear right in front of them. 

Using the same sort of tactics, Matty was trying to keep them busy by disappearing just as they moved towards him, and then reappearing elsewhere, which was managing to cause confusion and frustration amongst their attackers. Meanwhile, Robert had recovered from the surprising gut punch and was busy creating any form of weather that he could think of that wouldn’t actually do them any real harm. He knew that he couldn’t exactly strike them with lightning. 

There was a thick snow storm raging in one corner of the warehouse, surrounding the man moving at high speed. He struggled to get his footing on the now slippery, snow-covered floor and he was struggling to see where he was going as the blizzard engulfed him, and Robert hoped it would slow him down for a while.

Aaron had kept moving, avoiding the big man who was intent on slamming his fist into his face. He could tell that the man wasn’t even at full strength - he was tiring already - but Aaron was grateful for that fact. He could only imagine how strong he would be if he hadn’t been drained by Lachlan’s power absorption so frequently. It might have taken more than just him to bring him down ordinarily. Fortunately, Aaron had another ace up his sleeve. Continuing to dodge the man’s weakening blows, Aaron slipped behind him and managed to push him backwards with his mind. It took a lot of effort, even with the man tiring as he was, mainly because of the sheer size of him, but Aaron forced him backwards gradually until he was inside one of the cages. He hated doing it to another person but he had no choice: with his mind, he slammed the door shut and locked it. 

Meanwhile, Ellis had finally shaken off the feline mutant and gone to help Matty. The woman switched her attention to Aaron. She hissed at him as he spun around to face her and he frowned at her. She clearly had no control over her actions: she was acting like a feral cat. 

Despite her behaviour, she was quick and she managed to leap at him and grab hold of him. Aaron cried out in pain and shock as she sunk claws into his chest. When he managed to throw her off, he glanced down and saw that he had four long, deep scratches across his chest, that were bleeding freely. The woman had landed on her feet and when Aaron looked up at her, she was still holding out her razor sharp claws (something that Ellis didn’t possess) and she was clearly planning to sink them into the flesh of anyone she came into contact with. 

The woman leapt forward again. 

Matty appeared right beside Aaron in that moment and before the woman made contact, the pair of them disappeared and reappeared behind her. 

The woman spun around in confusion, clearly thrown by the sudden disappearance of her prey. 

She let out another horrible hiss, this time directed at Matty. She dived towards him but Aaron had had enough of her. 

Still trying not to do her too much damage, he managed to catch her off balance for a split-second and began forcing her backwards into one of the cells with his mind. He didn’t want to get within range of her claws again. She was struggling against the invisible force pushing her to no avail. Once Aaron had her inside the cell, he used his telekinesis to manoeuvre the door shut and lock it firmly. She was snarling at the bars and slamming her weight against the door like she was possessed, but at least she was contained.

The fast-moving man had finally managed to escape the snow storm and was moving impossibly quickly around the room again. He headed straight for Robert, who knew that he had no chance of moving out of his way unless he went upwards so, without over-thinking, he instantly created a powerful wind that lifted him up into the air and away from his attacker. The man stopped below him and stared up at him angrily. Suddenly, he was surrounded by a thick fog as Robert focused everything on maintaining the wind that was holding him up and creating the fog at the same time. Under the cover of Robert’s disorientating fog, Matty teleported right behind the man and managed to knock him out with a blow to the back of his head. It wasn’t ideal, they didn’t really want to hurt these people, but they had to disable this man while he was momentarily still. As Robert began to sink back towards the ground, Matty started dragging the unconscious man back towards one of the cells so he could be locked inside out of harm’s way.

There was a horrible pained cry and all eyes flicked to Ellis as he stumbled backwards clutching his side. The man throwing the projectiles had managed to clip him and blood was pouring through his fingers as he staggered away from his attacker.

Aaron reacted instantly. With a flick of his hand, the man was flying backwards through the air, until he landed in a heap on the opposite side of the warehouse. He rushed to Ellis’s side and took in his friend’s condition. Ellis’s eyes were wide, his face paling as he clutched his side in agony.

“Matty!” Aaron called urgently.

Instantly, Matty was beside them awaiting instructions.

“You need to get Ellis and Liv out of here. Get them to the hospital. Me and Robert will finish this,” Aaron commanded.

Matty looked torn as he heard Aaron’s words. “I can come back,” he suggested quickly.

“No,” Aaron shook his head. “Look after them. We’ll join you after we’ve dealt with this maniac. Let the police know where we are and send ambulances for these people. Just make sure Ellis and Liv are okay.”

Nodding once, Matty placed his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Be careful,” he said with a serious look on his face, before he disappeared from view, taking Ellis along with him.

Moments later, they appeared next to Liv, and after briefly whispering in Liv’s ear and with one last look at Aaron, Matty disappeared with both of his injured friends.

Everything seemed very quiet all of a sudden. Too quiet.

Aaron’s thoughts immediately went to Robert. The last time that Aaron had seen him, he had been hovering in the air creating a thick fog on the other side of the warehouse. Even with everything that was going on around them, Aaron had managed to be impressed by Robert’s skill: not so long ago he’d struggled to stay a few feet above the ground and now he was flying with seemingly minimum effort and creating other weather forms at the same time.

Aaron turned around quickly and drew in a shocked gasp at the sight before him.

The fog was fading away gradually to reveal the psychotic bastard that had started all of this, standing there smirking at Aaron. 

Gripped tightly against his chest was Robert. 

Robert wore the same blank expression that the other four mutants had and Aaron knew immediately that his mind was being controlled.

“Let him go,” Aaron ordered. 

Lachlan scoffed at his suggestion and then completely ignored it. 

Aaron took a step towards them, desperate to get closer so he could get his hands on Lachlan and release Robert from his clutches. Lachlan held up one hand in a signal warning him to stop moving - using his other arm to keep hold of Robert like a human shield. He tutted loudly and shook his head as if Aaron were being badly behaved. 

Aaron had no choice but to stay where he was. He was too far away to make physical contact with either Lachlan or Robert, and he couldn’t risk using his telekinesis for fear of hurting Robert in the process. 

“Do you know how long it took me to find Liv?” Lachlan asked suddenly. “A  very long time,” he answered his own question. “I needed her to help me choose people. Her gift meant that I could find people from far away. And now, you’ve taken her from me. I liked her.” He looked thoughtful and sort of sad for a long moment.

“Liv wasn’t yours to keep,” Aaron said. He was trying to stay calm to prevent Lachlanfrom doing anything drastic. “None of these people are. You can’t just take their powers - that’s not fair.”

“ _ Fair _ ?” Lachlan yelled. “ Fair ? What’s not  fair is that I can never touch another living person without sucking the life out of them. You don’t know what that feels like – to be always alone. If I want to take their powers – I will.”

In an attempt to calm him down again, Aaron held up his hands. He was desperately trying to think of a way to stop Lachlan but with Robert unknowingly acting as a barrier, he didn’t know what he could do.

As Aaron helplessly watched on, it looked like Robert was regaining some control over his own mind. He was blinking rapidly and he looked confused about where he was. Still he was held tightly against Lachlan’s chest and there was no way that he’d be able to wriggle free without Lachlan realising what was happening. Maybe Lachlan’s use of Liv’s stolen powers was running out or maybe keeping Lachlan talking was distracting him from controlling Robert. 

“I could drain him in seconds, you know,” Lachlan said suddenly as he gestured at Robert. His voice was quieter now, disturbingly so.

Aaron’s eyes widened and he shook his head slightly. He couldn’t keep up with how this mad man’s mind worked and he was scared that anything he said might push him over the edge.

Lachlan breathed in deeply, like he was inhaling something in the air. “He’s really quite special,” he said almost reverently. “So full of energy and life. Imagine being able to control the weather like that. Imagine creating storms and floods and droughts with a flick of your hand. Imagine the power you could have over so many people. Imagine the control you could wield over whole countries, over governments.” 

His hand lifted and Aaron watched in horror as he stroked the side of Robert’s face. It was the briefest of touches, but Robert’s eyes widened in horrified shock before they rolled back in his head. His knees gave out and it was only Lachlan’s arm around him that stopped him from collapsing onto the floor.

“ No !” Aaron yelled and he took another desperate step forwards before Lachlan held up his hand again to stop him.

“Move again and I’ll take it all,” he said darkly before he was suddenly smiling brightly; he looked giddy with excitement. “That was a rush,” he gloated. “What an amazing feeling.” 

He raised his hand and created a dark cloud above Aaron. And then it started raining, soaking him completely in seconds, but Aaron just kept staring at the scene before him, desperate for a solution.

Lachlan suddenly closed his hand and the rain stopped immediately. He smirked and then tilted his head slightly to the side as he looked at Aaron in consideration. Then he let out a little laugh. 

“You can’t stand it, can you? You don’t like me touching him. I can hear your thoughts thanks to Liv’s wonderful powers that she so graciously shared with me.”

Aaron clenched his jaw and his fists, but he didn’t speak.

“You’ve missed your chance, haven’t you? So afraid to let him get close to you and now you’re going to lose him anyway,” Lachlan smirked at him. “I’m going to enjoy taking everything from him. Imagine the fun I’ll have with his powers. I think I might keep him hanging on to life for as long as possible, just so that I can enjoy this feeling over and over again. It’s a shame though because I don’t think he’ll last that long…he’s too full of energy bubbling away at the surface. He’ll soon be exhausted and then I’ll just have to take what little strength he has left and finish him off. I wonder if he’ll even have the strength to call out for your help,” Lachlan taunted.

He lifted his hand again but Aaron called out to stop him.

“Don’t. Don’t do this,” he begged. He couldn’t stand and watch Robert hurt like that again. 

“Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I have this power?” Lachlan asked with a smirk.

“Because…because you can have me instead,” Aaron said. 

He knew what he had to do. He couldn’t bear to watch as Robert was stolen from him. He couldn’t stand the thought of Robert being drained of his wonderful, bright spark of life and energy. Maybe it was selfish, but he couldn’t stand to watch someone else that he cared for so deeply being taken from him. If that meant that he sacrificed himself in order to stop that happening, he was happy to do it.

Robert was gradually creeping back to full awareness. Everything seemed horribly fuzzy but he was aware of people talking nearby. He could hardly move and he realised that he was being held tightly against someone’s chest. He could feel the vibrations as the man spoke and feel his heartbeat thudding against his back. After a moment, he recognised one of the voices: Aaron. It took him a few seconds to focus on his voice but then he felt a cold rush of dread pass through his entire body as he realised what Aaron was saying.

“I’m stronger than him. If you let him go and take me instead…I can withstand more than him…my energy can keep you going for longer.”

Lachlan was actually considering Aaron’s offer. He was watching Aaron closely, studying his face. 

“You would do that? You would give yourself up for him? How sweet. It’s such a shame that he’ll never know.”

While Lachlan had been talking, Robert had made a decision; he wasn’t going to let Aaron sacrifice himself. He didn’t know what Lachlan’s next move was going to be: was he going to let him go and attack Aaron instead? Or was he going to continue draining the life out of him and use his powers against Aaron? Either way, Robert wasn’t going to let him make the choice, just like he wasn’t going to let Aaron get hurt.

There was no way that he could turn around in his current position which didn’t leave him with many options. Obviously Lachlan didn’t see him as a threat at that moment; he probably thought that Robert was still drained from his touch or under his telepathic control. But with Lachlan distracted by Aaron, his control over Robert’s mind had slipped away, and he’d only touched his skin for the briefest of moments so, even though that had felt truly awful and Robert had been convinced he was about to collapse from the weakness that had taken over him, he had started to recover relatively quickly and Lachlan hadn’t noticed. 

Now was the time to act. 

Carefully, so as not to attract attention, Robert rubbed the fingers of his right hand across his thumb and tiny forks of lightning ignited across his palm. He could only manage a limited energy supply as he still felt the effects of Lachlan’s energy absorption dragging him down, but hopefully it would be enough. Slowly, he lifted his hand.

Aaron saw what Robert was doing and looked at him quizzically. It took a moment for him to understand what Robert was intending to do; he wondered if Robert was still being controlled somehow. But then his eyes widened as he realised that Robert looked fiercely determined and he just knew what he was planning. Their eyes locked for a moment and Aaron shook his head slightly, but it was too late.

“If you want my powers so much – you can have them,” Robert suddenly announced as his hand made contact with Lachlan’s face. 

Lachlan jolted in shock at the contact but he gritted his teeth and clung on to Robert tightly.

Robert let out a pained groan as soon as their skin touched but he refused to pull away – he had to finish this. His power wasn’t at full strength: he couldn’t produce enough energy to kill his attacker outright, but if he could hold on for long enough he’d be able to eventually stop Lachlan.

“ _ No _ !” Aaron screamed as he ran forwards.

The lightning from Robert’s hand was coursing through Lachlan and he began to convulse violently. Gradually, he loosened his hold on Robert, but as Robert managed to turn around, Lachlan’s hand shot out, gripped his wrist tightly and pulled him closer. His eyes were practically popping out of his head as he grimaced in pain but he refused to let go of Robert. 

Even as he was dying, he was going to make other people suffer. 

Robert’s skin was now in contact with Lachlan’s in two places and he felt himself weakening before he fell to his knees, dragging Lachlan with him.

Aaron watched in horror as they fell. Robert’s skin was horribly pale and his veins were bulging where his flesh seemed to be sinking into itself.

There was a sudden loud crackle as Robert’s face contorted and he narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth in a silent scream and there was a flash of blinding light, which caused Aaron to lift his arm to shield his eyes, followed by an enormous bang. 

Lachlan cried out one more time before his writhing body fell still. 

When Aaron lowered his arm and the black spots disappeared from in front of his vision, he watched as Robert limply collapsed beside Lachlan. They were still connected by Lachlan’s hand holding onto Robert’s wrist. 

Immediately, Aaron rushed forwards and fell to his knees beside them. In disgust and rage, he sent Lachlan’s body flying away with his telekinesis before he rolled Robert onto his back.

“Robert?  _ Robert _ ?” He was shaking him in panic. “Oh God, please wake up, _please_,” he begged desperately.

There was no reaction as Robert remained frighteningly still and silent.

“ _ Fuck _ !” Aaron screamed out in anguish. He didn’t know when they had started but tears were streaming down his face. “Robert,  please …”

Still there was silence so Aaron pulled Robert close to his chest, just as he had done with Liv when they had found her. He was rocking backwards and forwards, his mind filled with how he had failed again and lost another person he loved. As soon as he thought of that, his tears flowed with renewed strength; he’d started to fall in love with Robert and he had never even realised until it was too late. He pressed his cheek against Robert’s own and squeezed his eyes shut.

A strange tickling sensation against the skin of his cheek made him lift his head slightly. He looked down, gasping in disbelief at the sight of Robert’s eyelids fluttering as though he was trying to open his eyes. He hardly dared hope that Robert was still alive.

“Robert?” he whispered softly as he reached his hand up to stroke Robert’s cheek gently.

Robert moved his face ever so slightly into the touch but his eyes didn’t open.

“It’s alright, Rob,” Aaron told him quietly. “I’m going to look after you.”

With that, he scooped him up into his arms and lifted him from the floor. Robert didn’t react to being moved, except to lean closely against Aaron’s chest. Aaron just squeezed him tightly before walking out of the warehouse.


	8. 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go after this chapter...

When Aaron walked into the waiting room at the hospital, Matty nearly knocked him over with the force of his desperate hug. He clung to Aaron like he was the only thing that he had left in the world and Aaron was immediately scared that something awful had happened while he had been at the warehouse. 

When he finally managed to remove Matty, he asked him to explain what had happened since arriving at the hospital.

Apparently, Ellis’s injury was practically the same as a gunshot wound. The doctors were sure that none of his major organs had been damaged and, despite the substantial blood loss, they were confident that he would make a full recovery.

Liv’s condition had caused great concern amongst the staff but they were quick to stabilise her: hooking her up to various machines and drips to begin replenishing lost fluids and nutrients. They had informed Matty that Liv was very weak - currently unconscious - and that she would be laid up in bed for a while as she recovered from the strain put on her body by having the life literally sucked out of her. She was in a vulnerable condition, susceptible to illness and infection, but with the correct care and medicines she should be back on her feet and fighting fit eventually.

Matty also told him that he’d called Dawn as soon as he’d got to the hospital and found himself alone as both Liv and Ellis were whisked away. She’d been teary with relief down the phone and promised to be on her way to the hospital as soon as possible. 

As soon as he had finished explaining what he knew to Aaron, Matty asked after Robert. He had seen the redness of Aaron’s eyes and obviously noticed the absence of Robert at their reunion.

Aaron hung his head and drew in a few deep breaths before he could find the words to explain what had happened at the warehouse. 

As he spoke, Matty placed his hand on his shoulder and squeezed tightly; just letting him know that he was with him.

When Aaron had walked out of the warehouse with Robert in his arms, the police and paramedics were just arriving. Robert had immediately been loaded into an ambulance - Aaron riding along too as he refused to leave him - and rushed to the hospital. 

Phrases like ‘thready pulse’ and ‘organ failure’ scared Aaron beyond words but he refused to give up hope that Robert would keep fighting. As soon as they reached the hospital, Robert was whisked away and Aaron was left alone. He had asked at the desk and been directed to where Matty was waiting and had felt such relief at seeing at least one of his team in one piece.

When Aaron finished his retelling, he leant forwards in his seat, placing his elbows on his knees and resting his forehead on his hands. Matty’s hand rubbed up and down his back in comfort. He allowed himself a few moments to let the shock of everything that had happened sink in.

The concern and panic upon finding that Dawn had been attacked and that Liv was missing; the anger of realising that someone had kidnapped his little sister; the exhausting, fruitless days spent scouring the city for any sign of her and the despair of returning to the house without her. The hope that they might actually have a chance of finding her and the elation of seeing her alive in that warehouse. The horror of realising what had happened to her and what Lachlan had been subjecting his prisoners to. The adrenaline of the fight; the worry at seeing Ellis injured; the urgency of needing to get him and Liv to safety. The rage at Lachlan holding Robert captive; the fury as he had touched Robert; the terrible knowledge that Robert would die if he didn’t do something; the easy acceptance of his fate if it meant that Robert would survive. The disbelief of watching Robert sacrifice himself; the horror as the life was drawn from him; the devastation of holding Robert’s seemingly lifeless body in his arms and realising that he was too late.

A pained sob was ripped from Aaron as he relived every moment. Matty immediately wrapped him into a tight hug, whispering that it was going to be alright.

After a while of Matty holding him tightly and rubbing his back, he began to feel something else.

The hope that Ellis and Liv would both make full recoveries. The knowledge that even though Robert was clinging onto life by a thread, he  was clinging on. The determination that they would all make it. The love that he felt for all of his team and knew that they returned. The feeling in his chest that he felt whenever he thought of Robert’s smile.

He squeezed Matty a little tighter.

None of them were giving up on life. They were all fighting for it and, for the first time in a quite a while, Aaron was too.

***

Robert felt like he had the hangover from hell. Maybe he was  in Hell. That would be the only possible explanation for the way he felt.

He didn’t really want to risk opening his eyes. Surely, the throbbing ache in his head would only intensify if he dared to lift his eyelids. His limbs felt like dead weights. His throat felt like he had been gargling with sand.

He was struggling to focus his thoughts – what had happened to him? 

Gradually, he began to remember searching for Liv. He remembered hearing a voice and finding the warehouse. He remembered discovering Liv and fighting with other mutants. And suddenly he remembered Aaron’s face, contorted into a look of pain even though there didn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with him. He remembered Aaron screaming his name…

Robert’s eyes snapped open and he immediately regretted it as he squinted against the light streaming through the window. He tried to lift his hand to block some of the light but found he could barely move his arm; his fingers twitched against the blanket. Not his blanket, not his bed, not his room.

“Wuh?” he managed to groan and suddenly there was a hand holding his, squeezing his fingers tightly.

“Robert? Can you hear me?”

Turning his head slightly to the side, Robert continued squinting, but saw the hopeful face of Liv looking back at him eagerly. He just blinked slowly for a few moments.

“Liv?” he croaked hoarsely. God, his throat was dry.

“Oh my god, Rob. It’s so good to see you,” Liv exclaimed with a grin.

For a moment, Robert wondered where he’d been, but then realised that maybe he hadn’t  been anywhere; maybe he’d just not been  there fully. He wanted to speak, he wanted to ask so many questions but when he tried to force them out, nothing came. His mouth flapped open a few times and he looked at Liv pitifully hoping that she’d understand.

“D’you want a drink?” Liv suddenly asked.

Robert nodded slightly, the movement requiring a ridiculous amount of energy.

Slowly, Liv pushed herself out of her chair and equally slowly made her way over to the jug on the bedside table. She poured out a cup of water and came back to Robert. She helped him to sit up slightly and then supported him while he gratefully swallowed the cool liquid. Robert had never known that water could taste so wonderful.

“Thank you,” he managed to say as he lay back against the pillows. His voice was gravelly but at least it was working now.

“I bet that feels better,” Liv commented, still with a soft smile on her face.

“What…happened?” Robert asked slowly. He felt like he had to think carefully about his words and take deep breaths between them. “Are you…alright? What about…the others?”

Liv’s smile fell a little and her expression darkened a little. Instantly, Robert was afraid that something awful had happened. Was one of the others hurt? What if they were gone? A beeping beside the bed alerted both of them that Robert’s heart rate was rising in his panic but Liv just took his hand and squeezed again.

“They’re all okay,” she promised. “I just don’t like thinking about what happened, that’s all.”

Robert did his best to calm himself down and tried to squeeze Liv’s hand in return – it was a rather feeble effort. His eyes fell shut for a moment as he willed the pain in his head to subside.

“I should fetch a nurse,” Liv said quietly.

“No,” Robert forced out, his eyes opening again. “Please…will you…tell me?”

Liv nodded once and started her retelling of the story. She explained everything from the moment the team had gone to the crash on the motorway. She told Robert how she hadn’t noticed anything unusual at the house: both her and Dawn had been far too busy dealing with the fallout from the crash. 

Before she had realised what was going on, someone had grabbed hold of her from behind. She had struggled but had suddenly lost her strength completely. She remembered collapsing and then nothing else until she met Lachlan at the warehouse.

Liv’s story continued: telling Robert about what had happened while she was kept prisoner and her desperate attempts to send out a call for help. She didn’t remember what had happened when the team had found her; that part of the story was all based on what the others had told her. 

When she told him what she knew about what had happened between Robert, Aaron and Lachlan, Robert’s own memories came flooding back to him. He remembered the dizzy feeling as his strength seemed to leave him when Lachlan touched his skin; he remembered Aaron’s furious and scared expression and he remembered knowing that he was willing to do whatever it took to make sure that Aaron didn’t get hurt.

Suddenly, what might have been a memory flashed into his head. 

He remembered dragging himself back into consciousness. It was so hard; he’d felt like he was swimming through treacle as he’d battled to open his eyes. There was none of the pain that time, maybe they’d got him on some powerful drugs, but the lethargy had still been present. Eventually, he’d forced his eyes open – achingly slowly. Sitting beside the bed, watching him with complete focus, had been Aaron. As Robert had blinked at him in confusion, the worried frown and sadness in Aaron’s eyes had slowly lifted until he was gazing at Robert with an expression full of fondness and hope.

They had shared a moment of simply looking at one another before Robert had felt his eyelids drooping. He hadn’t wanted to close his eyes again; he’d wanted to stay with Aaron, but that wasn’t meant to be. Whatever drugs were being pumped into his system had clearly been sedating him once more and he’d drifted away again.

It seemed like a lovely dream, but Robert hoped it was reality.

When Liv finished her story, Robert looked at her steadily. 

“And…are you alright – really?” he asked slowly.

Liv shrugged and wrinkled her nose slightly. 

“I’m okay,” she said quietly. “Still a bit shaken up I guess. And I get tired out pretty quickly. The doctors said I’ll be back on my feet properly as long as I take it easy now and don’t overdo things.”

“I’m glad…you’re doing okay,” Robert told her as he squeezed her hand again. Then he blinked at her slowly and tried to stifle a yawn.

“You should get some rest,” Liv said and she leant back from the bed.

At the prospect of being left, Robert looked a little alarmed but Liv just patted his arm. 

“Don’t worry, I’m staying until Matty arrives.”

Feeling reassured that he wouldn’t be alone, Robert allowed his eyes to fall shut and he immediately slipped into a deep sleep.

***

Three days later, Robert’s recovery was progressing well. He was managing to stay awake for longer periods of time and was actually able to sit up in bed without any assistance.

Apparently, he had been in a coma for several days. The doctors had said that his body was doing whatever it could to protect itself and as a result it had effectively shut down.

Since he had been awake more consistently, Robert had always had either Dawn, Liv, Matty or Ellis, or some combination of them, at his side. They had told him that Lachlan was dead and his victims were all being treated at the hospital. They were all in various stages of treatment but it was hoped that they would all make a full recovery. Liv was still slowly recovering too. She’d also been unconscious for a few days when they’d first brought her into the hospital, but again, the doctors had said that that was to be expected after what she’d been through.

Robert was extremely grateful for the company of his friends, as it kept his mind from thinking about what had happened. When he was alone, at night when he was supposed to be asleep, he sometimes woke up and then struggled to get back to sleep. At those times, he couldn’t stop himself from remembering what had gone on at the warehouse but that wasn’t what really kept him awake. His thoughts always ended up drifting to Aaron. He wondered why Aaron hadn’t been to visit him. And he missed him. 

Before they’d gone to rescue Liv, Robert was sure that he and Aaron had shared something, a moment or some sort of connection. They’d kissed again and Aaron hadn’t pushed him away that time. Aaron has initiated it and he’d been the one to lean into Robert afterwards. Maybe he’d just been seeking comfort in the midst of the stress of what was happening, but it hadn’t felt like that. 

They’d been growing closer again after their first derailed kiss. And Robert was sure that what had passed between them at the warehouse, just before he’d attacked Lachlan, was a look of something special, even as Robert knew that he was likely to die. 

But there had been no sign of Aaron at the hospital so maybe he didn’t care after all.

After wondering why Aaron hadn’t made an appearance at the hospital, Robert had eventually asked Dawn what was going on. Dawn had shrugged uncertainly and offered no helpful explanation to Robert. But she did say something that made Robert feel better: apparently while Robert had been unconscious, Aaron had spent every possible moment at his bedside (when he wasn’t checking up on Liv, obviously). Aaron had been the one to tell them the good news that Robert had started to show signs of waking up, however briefly, with a look of sheer relief on his exhausted face. 

While that made Robert feel warm inside, and somewhat calmed him, he still didn’t understand Aaron’s absence. What had he done wrong to keep Aaron away? 

On the fourth morning that Robert woke up in his hospital bed, he was a little surprised to find that he was alone. Each morning that he had stirred from his sleep, he had found one of his friends occupying the chair beside his bed, however today there was no-one. He wondered if something was wrong and actually started to panic a little before he realised that there was someone standing in the doorway to his room. Not just someone - Aaron.

Aaron looked agitated as he stood staring at Robert. He was chewing his lower lip and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, but he made no attempt to cross the threshold.

They just stared at one another for what seemed like a long time.

“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time and then looked at each other in confusion.

Robert knew what he was apologising for. While he’d had time to think through the events at the warehouse, he had come to the conclusion that Aaron was angry with him. What other reason did he have for staying away? Robert was sure that Aaron was mad at him for getting himself captured by Lachlan in the first place, and also for attempting to stop him in the way that he had. Surely, Robert’s risky, life-endangering actions were exactly the sort of thing that Aaron hated. Surely, he was furious at Robert for his recklessness. And Robert wanted to apologise for that. He hated knowing he’d put Aaron in that position of having to witness and go through something like that. He also wanted Aaron to know that he had only done what he had in order to save them and stop Lachlan from hurting anyone else. But he was also sure that Aaron wouldn’t take too kindly to anyone ‘saving’ him in such a way. Robert was sure that Aaron would struggle to forgive him so he had absolutely no idea why Aaron was apologising to  him .

Aaron was looking back at Robert with an equally bewildered expression. He moved towards the bed so suddenly that Robert actually jumped in surprise.

“What do you have to be sorry for?” Aaron asked, sounding almost desperate as he stood beside the bed and looked down at Robert.

Robert took a few breaths as he tried to calm his racing heart. 

“Everything,” he said earnestly. “For getting caught and trying to stop Lachlan like that and getting hurt.”

“Don’t” Aaron said forcefully. “Don’t you dare.”

Robert blinked at him a few times in shock. He didn’t understand this conversation.

“You have nothing to apologise for, Robert. You were really brave to do what you did.”

“But…I thought you were mad at me,” Robert said quietly.

“Why would you think that?” Aaron asked. His eyebrows were furrowed as he continued looking at Robert in concern.

“Because…well, because you haven’t been to see me.” 

Robert felt silly saying it. Aaron wasn’t obligated to visit him after all.

A deep sigh fell from Aaron’s lips and he sank down into the plastic chair beside the bed. 

“I’m not mad…at you, anyway. I was mad at that bastard for hurting you and Liv, but I’m mostly mad at myself. I’m mad that I couldn’t stop you from getting hurt and I’m mad at myself for being such a coward.”

“What are you talking about?” Robert asked in complete confusion. “It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt, so you shouldn’t be mad at yourself for that. And, you aren’t a coward; I know that you offered to sacrifice yourself to help me.”

“That’s not what I mean though,” Aaron said with a shake of his head. “I’ve been hiding away at the house since you woke up instead of coming here to visit you -  that’s why I’m a coward.”

“You’re here now,” Robert offered with a small smile, trying to reassure Aaron that everything was alright between them.

“But that’s not good enough,” Aaron argued. He seemed determined to be hard on himself. “I should’ve come before now. I’ve been so scared.”

“Of what?” Robert asked in bewilderment.

“ You ,” Aaron stated simply.

The word hung in the air between them for a long moment. Robert had no idea how to respond. He just didn’t understand what Aaron was saying.

Aaron blew out a long breath like he’d been holding onto his thoughts and feelings for a long time. 

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” Aaron eventually continued, “and I’ve come to the conclusion that…you...kind of terrify me.” He huffed out a bitter little laugh at his own words but carried on speaking before Robert could interrupt. “At the warehouse, when Lachlan had got hold of you…I thought he was going to kill you. I couldn’t stand the thought of it. I couldn’t stand it when he touched you and I saw you hurt. I was so scared that I was going to lose you…I was going to stand there and watch you die in front of me and I couldn’t bear it. I tried to make him let you go by trying to take your place but it was too late, everything was already set in motion by that point. And when you attacked him and you collapsed…I thought you were dead. I thought I’d lost you. It took losing you to realise how much I cared about you and I was too late.”

Robert swallowed thickly. He was struggling to absorb Aaron’s words. His mind was racing at what Aaron was telling him; he cared for him, a lot by what he was saying. The thought of it filled Robert with hope and happiness.

“But it’s not too late,” Robert told him. “I’m going to be okay. And I care about you too…that’s why I did it. I didn’t want to see you get hurt either.”

“I was so scared, Robert,” Aaron said as he leant his elbows on the bed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms. He sighed deeply again. “And I’m still scared now.”

Robert reached out and tugged at Aaron’s wrist slightly, trying to make the other man look at him again.

“You terrify me…you have for quite a while now,” Aaron admitted as he finally made eye contact with Robert again. “You make me feel…things that I haven’t for a long time. You make me happy but also so bloody afraid. I can’t bear the thought of losing another person that I care about…that I love…so how can I take the risk? So that’s why I’m a coward, because I’m so afraid of my feelings for you and what they might mean.”

A heavy silence fell in the room. Robert was still reeling from Aaron’s confession. He had been sure that Aaron was avoiding him because he was angry with him, but in reality Aaron was actually struggling to cope with the fact that he had feelings for him; feelings that Robert returned just as strongly. No matter how scared Aaron was, Robert wasn’t going to give up on him. He had to make him see that, if there was a chance for them to be happy together, they had to take it.

“I know you’ve been hurt in the past, Aaron, by things that you couldn’t control. And I know that you’re scared of the same thing happening again. But do you really want to spend forever being afraid of that? I can’t make you any promises about the future, no-one can, but don’t you think it’s better to be together and scared, than alone and still equally frightened of what might happen? You can’t live like that; you can exist but you can’t  live – you can’t be happy. Don’t you think it’s worth taking the risk to have a life that’s worth living?”

Aaron’s eyes were bright as he looked at Robert. The weariness and frown on his face seemed to have been swept away by Robert’s words. He gently took Robert’s hand, still with slight hesitance in his actions, and laced their fingers together.

“No matter how scary all of this is and how much my feelings frighten me…I think,” he breathed out, “if you’re willing to take the risk…then so am I. You’re worth it, Robert.”

Robert’s answering smile was beaming as he squeezed Aaron’s fingers tightly. He tugged on his hand and pulled Aaron closer so that their faces were only centimetres apart. Then he reached his other hand up to thread his fingers into the hair at the back of Aaron’s head.

The kiss was tentative; nothing more than a soft brush of lips as Robert was afraid that Aaron would bolt at any moment when he realised what was happening. But when Aaron pulled away slightly, he gazed into Robert’s eyes fondly and more than a little dazedly. His expression said that he wasn’t going anywhere. He smiled sweetly and stroked his hand down the side of Robert’s face to cup his cheek gently. 

“I’ll help you to be brave,” Robert whispered, before he leant up and pressed his lips against Aaron’s again.


	9. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the lovely feedback on this fic. I’ve had such fun writing this universe despite how difficult things have been of late. I hope this fic has brought some happiness to somebody that’s read it.  
Feedback as always is much appreciated. X

** Six years later **

The scream ripped through the peace of the afternoon.

Immediately, five sets of eyes flicked in the direction that the sound had come from. Robert rolled his eyes as he heard the giggling coming from the small child that had previously been screaming bloody murder.

A moment later, Aaron had grabbed hold of the little girl and her twin brother, and was growling as he clutched one of them under each arm. Robert wasn’t sure if Aaron was supposed to be the abominable snowman or some sort of bear, but either way it was entertaining their children as Aaron easily lifted them and carried them around the garden. More screaming and more giggling followed as Robert watched on fondly.

Not long after, Aaron wandered over, still with the children hanging off him as he pretended to struggle under their weight.

“Uh,” he groaned dramatically, “You’re too heavy for me.”

“Poor Daddy,” Robert said to the twins as they untangled themselves from Aaron. “He’s getting too old for all of this. Why don’t you two go and see what Matty’s up to? If you’re good, he might even take you somewhere for an adventure.”

The children’s eyes widened and they looked at each other for a moment before turning and running off in Matty’s direction, both of them shouting, “ _Beach_! ” at the same time.

Robert laughed brightly as he leant over to look at where Aaron had sprawled out on the grass pitifully.

“Come on, old man,” he said as he offered Aaron his hand to pull him up.

Aaron took it but scowled at Robert in response before pulling him down to lie on top of him - Robert allowing it far too easily. 

“You do realise that you’re actually older than me, don’t you? So if anyone’s the  _ old man _ here, it’s you,” Aaron said in mock seriousness.

Robert arched his eyebrow at Aaron. “Don’t go getting any ideas about trading me in for a younger model,” he said.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Aaron replied before he pressed his lips against Robert’s.

Robert smiled into the kiss, before he ran his tongue along Aaron’s lips. He hummed a little in pleasure as he felt Aaron’s mouth open and his tongue meet his own.

“Ahem,” Liv coughed loudly from above them.

They broke apart and grinned a little sheepishly up at her as she stood watching them.

“You do realise that there are children present,” Liv said with a smirk. “And I’m not sure that any of the rest of us want to witness you two getting frisky on the lawn.”

Robert just laughed and buried his face into Aaron’s chest.

Then Matty was making his way over, accompanied by two cheekily grinning four year olds. 

“A trip to the beach has been requested,” Matty said with a smile. “But it’s up to you.”

“Please Daddy, _please_.”

The twins were bouncing up and down on their toes as they begged their fathers.

“Hmm, I’m not sure. What do you think?” Robert said as he plastered on a thoughtful expression and looked at his husband. Aaron merely frowned in response as though he were giving it serious consideration.

More pleading immediately erupted from the children before Robert held up his hand to silence them.

“I  _ suppose _ we can go to the beach, if you  _ really _ want to,” he sounded like it was a great effort but the twins obviously knew him too well. They bounded forward and wrapped him in a tight hug before running off with Matty to collect their bags from the house. 

“You’re a soft-touch,” Aaron whispered against his ear, causing him to shudder a little.

Robert nosed Aaron’s hair as he replied, “Nah, I just wanted to get you all sun-kissed and sweaty.” He pressed a final kiss to Aaron’s lips before he pushed himself up and wandered towards the house leaving Aaron staring after him with a grin on his face.

***

Robert and Aaron had put everything into their relationship. They were good for one another; everyone around them could see it and Aaron and Robert could  feel it.

Things weren’t perfect, but Robert always reminded Aaron that nobody’s relationship was. Aaron still had moments where his fear of losing Robert got too much. Sometimes he shut down and pushed Robert (and everyone else) away but Robert always managed to pull Aaron back. And Aaron was so much better at dealing with the fear and anxiety these days.

The hardest times were when Robert did something risky or ended up in a dangerous situation because of something he’d done. It had caused some blazing rows between the two men but it had also been the cause of some of their most passionate moments.

The first time that Aaron had properly announced that he was in love with Robert was when he had yelled it at him across their bedroom during an argument after Robert had fallen off a roof on one of their missions. 

Robert had responded by shouting at Aaron, “ _ Yeah, well I’m in love with you too, you idiot _ ,” before they had crashed together passionately and had rather wonderful make-up sex.

Robert had tried to take less risks and had promised Aaron that he would be more sensible but Aaron didn’t want him to – not really. He knew that being spontaneous was part of Robert’s character and that was just another reason why he loved him so deeply. 

But things had changed. They’d had to. 

As their relationship had gone from strength to strength, Aaron had decided to do possibly the scariest thing he’d ever done and proposed to Robert. Robert had been shocked and elated and of course he’d said ‘yes’. 

And then, not long after they’d got married, they’d decided to start a family. Things had moved remarkably quickly and before long they had a surrogate pregnant with the twins. 

And that was when things had really had to change. They’d decided that they couldn’t continue going out on missions together. Not with children waiting at home for them. They had other responsibilities to consider: people dependent on them. 

So they’d come to the difficult decision that only one of them would go on a callout at a time. Sometimes they simply alternated who attended the call; other times they decided based on who was best suited the situation. 

That had caused some tension itself because neither of them was particularly good at sitting at home waiting for the other one to return safely. And neither of them was good at watching the rest of the team head out, knowing that they couldn’t help.

But they’d eventually settled into a routine and things had got easier. Besides, when the twins - Annie and Oliver - arrived, they didn’t have time to worry about it anymore. They had their hands well and truly full. Robert frequently commented on how lucky they were to live in a house with four live-in babysitters on hand. 

They were lucky. They had each other. They had their family and friends. Neither of them could ever have believed they’d be so happy. 

***

Much later that evening, Robert wandered into their bedroom and flopped onto the bed beside Aaron. They had finished putting the twins to bed together and then it had been Robert’s turn to do a story once they were tucked in. Sometimes he wondered if he was more exhausted after a full day of keeping them entertained than he was after he’d been out on a mission. 

They’d decided to treat themselves to an early night and weren’t intending to leave their bedroom any time soon. 

“D’you know that while he was having his bath, Ollie said that when he grows up, he wants to be just like you?” Robert said.

Aaron smiled widely, the fond smile he always had when he thought about their children. “Aw, that’s nice.”

“ _ Nice _ ?” Robert echoed. “It’s not  nice , it’s an insult. Our son clearly idolises you more than me. It’s shocking.” 

Aaron rolled his eyes at Robert. He knew that he wasn’t actually offended. He leant over Robert and kissed his pouting lips softly until he felt Robert’s mouth quirk into a smile.

“You just wanted me to make you feel better, didn’t you?” Aaron asked knowingly.

“You see right through me,” Robert smirked as he reached up to pull Aaron back for another kiss.

Aaron laid his head on Robert’s shoulder. “Do you think they will have powers?” he asked quietly. 

It was something they’d discussed before - many times. Part of them hoped they would because it was a wonderful gift in many ways, but the other part of them hoped against it. They weren’t sure they wanted to see their children join the family business and put themselves in danger if that’s what they chose to do when they grew up. 

“Who knows? Guess they run in the family though,” Robert replied. “But hopefully we’ve got a good few years before we need to worry.”

Aaron hummed in response. That was true. Most people with powers only realised when they hit puberty and their bodies started to change, although traumatic events could trigger them to manifest earlier. Aaron wasn’t planning on any traumatic events for his kids so he hoped Robert was right and they had several peaceful years left. 

“As long as neither of them do a Matty, we’ll be fine,” Aaron eventually said. 

“‘Do a Matty’?” Robert asked curiously.

Aaron propped himself up on his elbow and looked down at him.

“When Matty was a kid, he was having breakfast one morning, sneezed and disappeared into thin air. His mum had a fucking shit-fit, as you can imagine. She had no idea he had powers obviously - none of them did. Turns out he’d teleported himself back to his bedroom.”

Robert’s eyes has widened slightly. “So we potentially have all that to look forward to with Annie and Oliver then.”

Aaron huffed out a laugh. “Hopefully not teleporting,” he said. “Can you imagine the trouble they’d get in to?”

Robert smiled up at him. “You’ve just cursed us now.” 

Aaron shrugged. “We’ll get through it whatever.”

Robert reached up and pulled Aaron in for another kiss. 

When he eventually pulled away, Robert looked up at him fondly. “I really do love you, you know.”

Aaron smiled down at him. “And I really do love you, just in case you were wondering.”

Robert hummed in contentment before Aaron leant back down and kissed him again. They had to make the most of these rare quiet moments together after all. 

They’d both lost things, they’d both been hurt terribly by things that had happened to them in the past and they both could have given up. But they’d found each other and saved each other and made a new, wonderful life together. What they had was definitely worth fighting for. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to give them a truly happy ending with the family and everything they deserve especially because of how things have ended on screen and left Aaron and Robert (and me) so heartbroken.   
I hope you enjoyed the soft ending - let me know. X


End file.
